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Does HR primarily look for 'sector specific experience' and if so, why?

Andre

In relation to recent posts here, it seems to be especially difficult to make such a lateral career move as from being an HR Advisor in the NHS to working as an HR Advisor for ASDA Supermarkets, although still slightly easier to go the other way around from the private sector to the public sector. Why is that? 

And more to the point, why is also that as thinking in terms of pure practicality and logic, HR experience is HR experience and the job role is the same. The only real difference is the employer and a slight change in the environment that you are working in. Whether or not you are an HRBP for TGI Friday's, BP, Stena Line, Amnesty International, West Midlands Police or Manchester City Council, you still need to perform the same functions, attend similar types of meetings and make similar types of decisions at the end of the day. 

Are the employers concerned being over selective, rigid, too picky and possibly unrealistic in their expectations, or do they essentially want the full package, the best possible experience match and fit, and primarily feel that one can come in, hit the ground running and perform the very best having done exactly the same type and level of job at an identikit organisation, just in a different location?    

What then happens if someone wishes to change from being an HR Advisor in the public sector to becoming an HRBP in a company such as The Boston Consulting Group, or an organisation such as Tearfund?

Impossible again with a capital 'I'?      

  

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  • in reply to Andre

    BUT, the "reasonable adjustments" that will be needed (and wanted) to enable an ASDA till-assistant to function effectively will be very different from those needed (and requested) by a Merseyside policeman. Treating people "equally" does not mean treating them "the same".

    ...and that is something we as professionals need to understand and adapt to, in all aspects of our practice.

    The ACAS Codes of practice are not law. The reason for that being that by using statutory Codes adaptation is possible, so long as the net effect is equally responsive to the framework the law demands, so the objectives of equality, or fair discipline, or satisfactory resolution of grievance, etc. can be achieved flexibly to suit differing situations, circumstances, and personal choices. Within a legally specific system no such variation is possible. The perfect example being the Statutory Dispute Resolution Procedures that the ACAS Code1 replaced; which within an matter of months of their promulgation had become prescriptive, distorted to become frequently anomalous (creating self-evident unfairness and at times near-irrational outcomes by their rigid interpretation) and counter-productive as a means of creating the natural justice being sought and which had been their objective.

    The evidence of Ray's point, and mine, being right there in front of us in the repealing of that systematic, statutory, approach.

    I believe you need to focus more on the relationship between your extensive academic success and how that amassed knowledge can be applied to the people and their motivation within sectors, then making that overall flexibility of your thinking recognisable to your interviewer(s), to succeed.

    P

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  • in reply to Peter
    Hera, hear Peter.
    I thank Ronnie Poppe, an excellent Belgian business professor and consultant, for an expression that I use massively in my own HR teaching:

    "CONTEXT IS KING"

    The same broad good practice principles and legal guidance/constraints apply everywhere, but HOW they are applied in different contexts calls for the positive exercise of professional judgement if they are to achieve success in each specific businss context. Forget "best practice" and look for the "best fit".....