HR career advice please... - HR Qualifications and studying - Careers Clinic

1 HR career advice please...

14 Mar, 2018 23:27

Hi everyone, I'm wondering if anyone can give me some career advice on getting into HR.

Over the past year i've been considering a career in HR more and more, and now i'm at the stage in my life that i'm 100% sure I want to go down this career path. I have recruitment experience, i'm very much a people person, I love L&D and i'm very passionate about equal rights and discrimination and I feel combined this would be great for me, in entering into a career in to HR, and I have recently been doing a lot of research into it.

So to give you a summary of myself I graduated in 2016 with a degree in Education Studies (not teaching, it's more about education policy and legislation and social patterns in education). My university work experience consists of predominantly hospitality, just part time roles to help pay the bills, and my 1st full time job was a 3 month hospitality program in America where I worked as a hotel receptionist. I never wanted a career in hospitality, this was purely just a chance to work and travel in America by starting my 'career'.

My 1st job in the UK was a recruitment administrator for a month as a temp role, and I then want on to become a Recruitment Resourcer, later a Consultant for Randstad. I did this for 5/6 months, before leaving to work in Australia. I love travelling and would love to take my career to an international level one day, so international experience means everything to me, and I am still working as a Recruitment Consultant over here for a different agency. I have been here for 4 months now and have been sponsored by the company to work over here. However I have now hit a bit of a cross roads. I

am enjoying my role as a Recruitment Consultant but it's not and never has been something I want to do forever, because while I love the recruiting and people monitoring side, I do not like the sales and client side. I plan on staying here for at least another 6 months (to which point i'll have been in Australia for 12 months, 2 months travelling and 10 months working), so all in all I will have had:

1 month experience as a Recruitment Administrator in England

5 month experience as a Recruitment Consultant in England

10 month experience as a Recruitment Consultant in Australia

so 16 months (agency experience) all in all alongside my degree in Education. I'm either going to try and look for HR Opportunities over here, but if not lucky return to England where my options are less limited (visa etc). I'm wondering if anyone can advise me the steps I should take into getting into HR. I've looked at various avenues such as internal recruitment, masters qualifications, CIPD, HR Admin and working my way up the ladder.

Would my previous recruitment experience help at all, or would I need to start from the bottom of the ladder, and would I need to consider a masters degree as well in HR? I'm just looking into avenues I could go down to get the possible chance in developing my career. I am very motivated, ambitious, and ready to work hard to climb the ladder. My end goal would to be a HR Manager for an international corporate company, such as Disney, Sony or Coca Cola, but I know I have a lot of work to do to get up there, and i'm just wanting to seek advice on where to start to get on the ladder.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you! Mel

3632 views

Elizabeth Divver | 0 Posts

15 Mar, 2018 11:44

Hi Melissa

I feel a certain degree of concern when someone says they want to go into HR because they are a people person. In HR, we deal with people management systems. Obviously, if you lack insight into how individual humans operate, what motivates them etc, you will not create or run effective systems, but much of the success or failure of HR is judged at the system level, not the level of individual interventions. HR management in an international company like Coca Cola (and I have worked in FTse100 companies, one of which was a multi-national) is a very hard-nosed business.

That is not to say that HR professionals don't deal with individuals. Browsing these threads will show that probably the majority of questioners are seeking support with a situation caused by one tricky person, although we do also get questions on how to run e.g. a consultation programme for a TUPE situation. However, fairly often the way out of these tricky situations is a safe route to dismissal - perhaps not very motivational for a people person?

As a people person, how do you think you would cope with closing a site and making everyone on it redundant? How are you with data analysis - could you put together a credible evidence-based proposal?

It is true that an important function in HR is to ensure the rights of the individual are upheld, but you aren't employed to be a crusader; you are part of the management team. The organisation paying you does so in the expectation that you will help the business to run smoothly, not that you will be using your role as a platform for campaigning.

L&D roles focus much more on the positive side of people management systems and you are already attracted to this field. You are already getting experience in recruitment and that looks like your obvious route into an HR department. You could have a great career in HR without ever engaging with some of the knotty ER problems that arise when relationships go sour, but not in an HR Manager role in an international corporate environment. However, those big companies will have specialised recruitment teams, which would be your in, and would also have specialised L&D teams which you could work towards joining once you are on the inside.
- Cancel