Career Path Transition into HR - Middle East - Middle East

2 Career Path Transition into HR

20 May, 2022 03:20

Greeting to all the HR professionals in this forum.

I wish to get your expert opinion on a question that I have, which is related to career path transition from Administration into HR, please.

I am a professional with 15+ years of experience in diverse areas within business administration, working for diplomatic missions in risk assessment area, visa decision making. I posses transferable skills such as public speaking, presentation skills, employee relations, ensuring my team's performance appraisal cycle and leave management are in compliant inline with the company's HR guidelines, induction of new employees, raising requisitions on Taleo for recruitment, focal point between management and team for various issues and so on.

I have attained a British MBA and recently completed CIPD's Diploma in HRM. I wanted to change my career path into HR as I am confident that I can put my transferable skills and knowledge to good use and also because I would have a clear career path as I can focus on one area. Moreover, I had volunteered and was accepted by CIPD as an investigation panel member recently.

Unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful in securing an HR position within my organization (Internal transfer) and upon speaking to the HR, I was told "HR does not think that you are competent enough to handle HR work, as you do not have HR experience". These were the exact feedback I got from HR. So, although this was not the response I expected, I am not giving up on my career aspiration and I wish to get clarity from the HR experts in this forum on what you would do if you were in my shoes and how you would handle this and what I should do next.

Appreciate your reply please.

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Robey | 0 Posts

20 May, 2022 10:12

HR does not think that you are competent enough to handle HR work, as you do not have HR experience

That's some clumsily worded feedback.

Did you have an interview for the role at all? If so, then the interview was probably "competency based", which means asking for examples of occasions when you've performed work similar to that required for the HR role in question and then having your answer scored on a scale from "no evidence of competence" to "ample evidence of competence".

I would guess that your answers failed to demonstrate sufficient experience or knowledge of correct or appropriate procedures for handling situations common to the role in question. Whilst boiling this down to "not competent enough" is technically accurate, it's also somewhat harsh and would have been better articulated as "didn't provide adequate evidence of competence".

If, on the other hand, you were rejected outright without an interview, then they have probably reviewed your CV and current job description and concluded that other candidates had profiles more suited to the role than yours. Again, to say that you weren't "competent enough" is harsh and it would have been fairer to simply say that others had more relevant recent experience.

Given that you have an MBA and Diploma in HRM, what level of role were you applying for? HR isn't an easy field into which to make a parallel move any more. Once upon a time, it was common to find people from Finance and Operations moving sideways into senior HR roles on the basis of relevant similar experience. But the world has mostly woken up to the fact that HR is a technical discipline in its own right that requires significant experience across a wide range of different fields - ER, OD, employment law, L&D etc - as well as formal qualifications to be suitable for senior roles.

You may be one of many not working in HR who take HR qualifications and then find themselves overqualified for an entry-level role (or unwilling to take the hit in income that such a role implies), but under-experienced for a senior role.
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Rathini | 0 Posts

20 May, 2022 10:37

In reply to Robey:
Hi Robey,

Thank you. Your reply has given me a fresh perspective on how applicants are compared. In my case, it was the second scenario. However, I see the bigger picture now. Thanks again.
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