After volunteering to write a blog on the process of entering the field of Human Resources, I spent some time thinking about what value this blog was going to produce. Based on the composition of the audience who this Social Media initiative is directed to, most people reading this will have far more experience and knowledge than I do, and it would be foolhardy for me to try and generate unique observations and new knowledge when I am only fractionally aware of the knowledge that is out there. So, in setting an objective I decided that you, the reader, would ideally generate the valuable content and that I, the entry level HR professional, would focus on assimilating it.
Here is a little background info on me: I based my out-of-high school education plan on what interested me and what I found engaging. What that left me with when I graduated was an Arts degree and a fairly cloudy career path. I operated under the assumption that upon the completion of my education I would magically know what I wanted to do with my future. I was wrong. I graduated and had no clear direction so I did what most generation y’ers are doing with their free time these days: I travelled. Call it ‘finding myself” or whatever (it was more like googling “what can I do with a Sociology Degree” and doing some research) but after some contemplation it was in a hostel in Rome I decided that HR was the profession where I wanted to hang my hat. I figured with my soc/psych background I had a knowledge base of motivation, understanding behavior, culture and change and some sort of glimpse at understanding how people interact. Basically I learned a lot of things that come at the end of posting for entry level HR jobs, somewhere after the qualifications and experience requirements. I had some experience in a work role where I came to understand what effective people management can do to a organization’s bottom line, so I decided to pursue it.
So here I am, Entering the HR Profession. And where that begins: the job search. Part of the plan involved building a base of tangible HR knowledge to allow me to write my CHRP NKE exam. My theory, and please feel free to correct me on this because I am hinging a lot of future goals on this assumption, is that a related degree with a CHRP designation will be equivalent or at least comparable to a Bcom with an HR focus. So with that in mind I joined the HRIA and began taking courses to build a base of HR knowledge. Through that experience I was connected to the HRMAE and volunteered for the social media sub-committee. I am learning the value of networking in both the job search and in access to information and how knowing people makes it easier to get things done. I’ve also learned that 80 percent of jobs are unadvertised and filled by word of mouth, and that accessing this hidden job market is far more time-intensive than submitting applications to online job posting.
To conclude this introduction, I have a few questions to pose that will be of value to me and other people in the same position as me who happen upon this blog:
What made you choose Human Resources as a career? How did you get your first HR job? Is there anything you learned from that process, or job searches since than that you think would be of value to someone like me?
And secondly, if you are in a recruiting or a hiring role, what have been your experiences lately with regards to the job market? Are the volume of applications you are receiving for positions increasing or decreasing, and do you see signs of economic recovery in terms of staffing requirements for your industry?
Tom Zabel