I’m in St Louis, again, this week meeting our new Payroll Administrator and taking over some corporate responsibilities through year end. My flight was bumping, it’s raining and cold and I’m a little sad because my wonderful husband is at home and I’m not.
Lance Haun, the smartest guy in the room, says in order to be a blogger you must, at minimum, post once a week. I don’t have a thoughtful post in me tonight.
With that in mind I’m going to leave you to ponder over a comment that was left on my Why HR post. HRobot says “My wife is trying so hard to get into HR in her company – and to no avail. I’m actually on a panel next week to discuss this very topic with undergraduates at my alma mater, and I’m having trouble coming up with more than 2 or 3 suggestions on how to “get into HR”……. pursuing a Master’s degree in HR seems to be the best option we have right now”.
How does one with A. no experience but a desire to be in HR and/or B. a higher education degree or PHR/SPHR certification with little or no experience break into HR?
Discuss amongst yourself.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
April- This is an interesting dilema. Everyone is so focused on the Masters Degree, and HR Certifications,and SHRM?
I am that person who has years of street smarts, HR experience, but lacks the certifications or the accelerated degree. Why is it so difficult?
I do have a college degree and the passion to succeed though.
I admit that this is a view from across the pond. But my opinion is this is about differentiation. There are hundreds of grads and post grads saying they want to get into HR. What makes them different?
Over the last 15 years I have recruited numerous HR people to teams that I have run. The thing that has mattered for me is always a spark, a sense of street savvy, a slight off centre view to things. I sat with a group of HR Directors from across the world earlier this week and we all agreed that the most important thing was not qualifications but personal characteristics, verve and presence.
Now I appreciate that this is hard for would-be HR bods, because how the hell do you demonstrate that on a CV? But at the same time it seems to me that if we are going to “raise the bar” in HR, we need to be looking at the right people and not the right qualifications.
I think sometimes you have to be creative and willing to take chances to get into HR. In my own situation, I was fortunate to get into an internal Staffing department while I was still in school. Once I had that experience it was easy (relatively) to move to another company (Pepsi – an HR Academy for sure) and then on from there. Also, there are other certifications or ways — possibly through Safety or Training that you can come into the overall field of HR (within a specialty) and then move to either a generalist or a different specialty.
Creativity, yes! Unique solutions to offer as well. If you’re fortunate enough to be able to work for a smaller company where everyone wears lots of hats, you may have an easier time getting in there. A lot of smaller and more innovative companies don’t have separate HR departments, but they’re still in need of HR. They’d be more likely to take a chance on someone with no formal training.
@Shelly – Excellent advice! That’s how I got into HR with a small company.
@HRM – I wiggled my way into HR via Payroll; they cant kick me out now.
@TheHRD – Couldnt have said it better myself. I dont want to hire the same ole drone for any position much less HR. I want someone with personality, not Toby. Qualifications are important but are those something you can teach the right person? They should be.