Thinking of giving up on my HR career :(

Hello,

I’ve really demotivated about the trajectory, or complete lack of, in my HR career. I attained a HR degree in 2008 and I’m an associate member of this fine establishment.

Quick career overview; I held a permanent position within HR for 8 years in the same organisation progressing from coordinator to advisor (of the Teacher’s Pension scheme). However, I was then unfortunately given mandatory redundancy.
I took this opportunity to travel the world and experience new cultures for 6 month and since I returned, 2.5 years ago, I’ve been trying to reignite my HR career with no meaningful success.

I managed to get a temporary HR coordinator role for 3 months, a year and a half ago, covering a long term sickness but I've not be able to get another HR role since.
I’m applying for both entry level and HR Advisor roles but it seems to be a glass ceiling and floor scenario due to me either having too much or too little experience. I’ve had 3 interviews for a HR advisor role in the last 12 months, without success, but nothing at the coordinator level.
As such I’ve been forced to accept a few sporadic temporary finance based roles out of necessity. But it’s not what I enjoy and it bores me due to the lack of human interaction among other things.  

I recently pad a few hundred pounds to get a newly designed CV in the forlorn hope this was my issue. It was not and the status quo continues.

I’m signed up to dozens of job websites, apply for most jobs at coordinator and advisor live, and have about a 2% success rate.

I’m really wondering whether as much as I want to work in HR does HR want me as much in return?
I don’t even know what else I want to do with my working life.

Parents
  • James, I’d definitely agree with you putting your HR experience on the front page otherwise a quick glance suggests you don’t have any relevant experience (if recruiters have a lot of CVs they may not make it to the 2nd page). Definitely try some HR volunteer work as well. You could be a school governor, join your local CIPD branch or the CIPD steps ahead mentoring scheme. Good luck!
Reply
  • James, I’d definitely agree with you putting your HR experience on the front page otherwise a quick glance suggests you don’t have any relevant experience (if recruiters have a lot of CVs they may not make it to the 2nd page). Definitely try some HR volunteer work as well. You could be a school governor, join your local CIPD branch or the CIPD steps ahead mentoring scheme. Good luck!
Children