Any Advice about a career in Human Resources?

Hello,





I am currently looking for a job in Human Resources as an Assistant and then I want to gradually work my way up. I have plenty of Administration experience, excellent computer skills, Communication skills and I am extremely organised.





Has anyone got any advice about the career, good and bad points, what is the best path to travel etc.





Any help will be gratefully recieved, thanks in advance.





I am based in the South East (uk)Any Advice about a career in Human Resources?
As long as you have admin experience you should be able to get an HR/Personnel Assistant role. In the current economic climate, you should probably just take whatever HR admin job you can get (as all experience helps) but, ideally, I think it would be best to get one where you get to work closely with HR professionals. Some organisations have moved towards having a centralised HR admin function, performing functions such as processing appointment letters, change of hours forms etc. However, although the work you carry out would be similar, if you are based on the same team as experienced Personnel Officers, you will learn a lot just by listening to them discussing the sickness, disciplinary and other cases they are dealing with - and, if you show you are interested, they may be willing to explain what they are doing or let you shadow them.


Although there is no legal requirement to have a qualification to work in HR, once you start looking at more senior roles, most organisations will require you to either have or be working towards graduate membership of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (http://www.cipd.co.uk) although sometimes employers will pay for you to do this course. Once you are in HR, there are lots of different specialisms you may be able to move into, although I think it's best to get some generalist experience first.


Good points of HR? - I think for generalist roles (advising managers and staff on day-to-day issues like absence management, disciplinary cases etc), it's a very interesting area, dealing with different issues and good if you like working with people.


Bad points? - You can be seen as the bad guy by staff (e.g. dealing with redundancies, dismissals etc)


Although you have to work within the law, the approach you are expected to take will depend on the organisation (e.g. some organisations will consider equal opps important while others will just want to do the bare minumum to avoid tribunals, some will be prepared to provide more support to staff who are off sick or have capability issues whereas others will be more quick to move towards formal proceedings and ultimately dismissal). Overall, I think the best thing to do is just get an entry-level role, take whatever learning opportunities you can and get to find out about the different areas of HR. If the organisation you work for doesn't offer these opportunities, start looking for another HR job elsewhere. (I spent three years working as a Personnel Assistant in an organisation where there were no development opportunities. I made a sideways move - applying for another Personnel Assistant job at the same level in a different organisation - and within three months of starting there, I was offered a promotion. They also paid for me to study for the CIPD qualifications).