Hi Emiah

I would strongly suggest trying to get exposure to 'next level' advisory duties within your current organisation. In my experience a lot of employers tend to want it all! So, not only do they want to see demonstrable experience at Advisory level (though you dont necessarily have to have the title HR Advisor on your CV for this) and relevant qualification ie CIPD level 5 or level 7. This is just my experience but perhaps this varies dependent on location.

If you can ask to 'shadow' your HR Advisor/HRBP that would be a start - finding out what sort of queries they get and how they approach resolving this. Asking to be note taker in disciplinaries and grievances, the next step from this after a time may be to ask to deal with less complex issues with some support from senior colleagues. I am finding increasingly that there is an expectation for employers in SME to require HR Personnel with Payroll experience so, getting to be involved in this would also help to a next level role. Also, things like providing support for any TUPE or Redundancy situations such as taking minutes in consultation meetings (for TUPE), that would be a start.

Regarding next steps of course, the ideal would be eventually to progress and be promoted should the opportunity arise within your organisation but if this is not likely to be a possibility, you can at least start to look out there for a role that is at least a 'step up' from your administrator duties. For this, you will need to be open and instead of focusing on roles like HR Advisor or Junior HRBP you should also broaden your search to reading the scope and development within roles such as HR Coordinator or HR Officer. The reason I say this is because as commented on this very forum, different job titles have different scopes in different industries and sectors. I myself took a HR Administrator role after a HR Officer role however, the scope in the Administrator role was much different and it was in the private sector whereas before my jobs had always been in the public sector. I wanted to get into the private sector but had a little hurdle because of my public sector background - this got my foot in the door so to speak.

You may want to consider applying to the NHS for a role - im pretty sure that you will not want for anything in terms of opportunities to develop but if you are a person motivated by reward, this may not be for you

You could be lucky to spot a job where they are happy to develop you with your CIPD level 5 qualification and little experience at mid level HR so dont rule this out as an option either.

I hope this helps

In reply to Cass Clothier:

Hi Cassie,
Thank you for your advice.

I have been fortunate that the team is very small so i have been assisting with note taking and giving advice within disciplinary and grievances meetings and have been doing this for the last 2 years. I work in a complex and sensitive environment and alot of the cases involve this. I've great exposure to the low to mid cases. I have reflected this on my cv. Maybe I need to review this.

I have payroll experience too within this role.

Unfortunately as the HR is very small there isn't an option to progress upwards but the exposure to experience is there.

Do you recommend any courses that would help with management skills in general that would help. I know I have completed my level 5, but my goal in the future is to reach HR Manager or HRBP.

Thank you

In reply to Emiah Brown:

If you want to get to Manager or HRBP then maybe a degree or level 7 is your best bet. I would certainly say that if you can give demonstrable experience - and it sounds as though you can and you show you are working toward wanting that more senior role qualification wise by actively embarking or being willing to study for this then that will no doubt appeal to prospective employers too.

Even with what you have currently you may find yourself fortunate to appeal to a small to medium sized business looking to introduce a sole HR person in to the business. Often these smaller companies advertise these roles as more senior titled role so, as long as you are happy to roll your sleeves up and be responsible for duties from administration to more senior level then ie managing redundancy, Tupe services, providing legal advice, writing policies etc then this might be a great platform for you.

Good luck - wishing you all the best

p.s sorry to be pedantic but I am not commonly known as Cassie, I am Cass :-)

In reply to Cass Clothier:

Thank you for your advice.
sorry my phone auto predicted and changed your name and I didn't notice.