If you want to be a HRD then finance, marketing etc are likely to be the weak spots in your inventory. I would focus on those.

Hi Juan

If you are going to do a Masters, is it essential you choose the one with the subject matter that you are going to find most engaging and enjoyable. I have an MBA and was lucky enough to be able to take a career break and do it full-time but there were also people in the same lectures as me on the part-time programme. My hat is off to anyone who manages to hold down a full-time job and complete a Masters. It isn't about your employer giving you an afternoon off, it is the reading, research and group work that takes place out of lectures. It will be so hard if you think of it as a chore.

My own experience is that for someone operating at board level, an MBA is a great qualification to have. As a director, you are not the supreme HR specialist in the HR team, you are part of the management team that runs the business. Obviously you need to have the HR experience and knowledge under your belt for you to be accepted without question as the expert in your field but the role of a board member is wider than that. You need the knowledge, vocabulary and outlook of a senior manager. IMO the MBA helps demonstrate that you have that breadth of business knowledge and the ability to take a business-wide view that a board member needs. I also think an MBA has more cachet outside the HR profession than an HRM. Sorry, CIPD, but I think that is still the case. However, I am biased because I chose to do an MBA, I had a fantastic time doing it and I made the jump to director level once I had it.

In reply to Keith:

I think I've just said in two paragraphs what you have said in two sentences.

In reply to Keith:

Thank Keith, I have had some exposure to finance, HSEQ and procurement in my current role to varying degrees. The finance part is somewhat quirky though and I have seen experienced Finance Managers struggle to make sense of the internal finance reports. The full accounts made available to Companies House are much more standard though.

I appreciate the feedback!

In reply to Juan:

It’s less about reading a detailed set of accounts but more about understanding finance etc at a strategic level so you can have the correct conversations. You are not trying to out finance finance but to have intelligent conversations.

In reply to Keith:

It maybe didn't come across very well... I hadn't intended to imply that I was trying to out finance finance. Just that the financial reports that I have become used to are very specific to our business and not necessarily transferable to another business. There are certainly areas where my knowledge could be improved. :)

In reply to Elizabeth Divver:

:)