If being an HR professional is your dream, then you need to know how to start a career in human resources. This article will help you with that.
Human resources is the first department of an organization that any outsider comes in contact with. Hence, it is only natural to want this department to recruit the best and most capable candidates to be the face of the organization. After all, they represent everything that the organization stands for. Many people believe that careers in human resource development are all about glamor and just delegation of authority.
What they do not realize is that this is the department that works behind the scenes constantly to see that only the best of the best candidates are recruited into the organization. If you too want to be a part of the human resources team of an organization, this CareerStint article will tell you how you can go about it.
Starting a Career in Human Resources
Starting a career in human resources is as simple and straightforward like any other stream. The skill set and qualifications may be different, but the basic procedure of taking the first steps into the career path is almost the same. It involves the same steps of getting the required educational qualifications, developing the required skills, searching for suitable jobs and getting the required work experience. We’ll discuss these steps further in the sections below.
Get a Degree
The first and foremost thing that you require in your journey towards a good position in human resources is to attain the educational qualifications that you are expected to have. That is of utmost importance. Ever since the importance of human resources in the corporate sector has risen, it has been seen that organizations prefer to hire candidates who have some prior knowledge of at least the outline of what all the job entails and what its functions are, what skills are required, what the duties and responsibilities are, how one can go about achieving the required results, etc.
There are many institutes that offer graduate and post-graduate programs in business management, and specialize in human resources. There are also institutes that offer in-depth theoretical knowledge of human resources and its different facets. So the first thing that you should do is enroll yourself at one of these institutes and get the required degree or diploma.
Develop Personal Skills
The job description involves being a liaison between various departments within an organization. It also includes being the contact point with the outer world. It is the department that takes care of recruitment, interviews, training, discrepancies, conflicts within and relating to the organization, termination, etc. All these duties involve being in constant touch with people.
Needless to say, communication and interpersonal skills of a person aspiring to start a career in this field have to be impeccable and impressive. One needs to hone these skills and use them to the best of their abilities to carry out the responsibilities entrusted to them. Hence, make sure that you’re good with people and develop your soft skills well.
Look Out for Vacancies
Once you’re almost done with your educational requirements, you need to start hunting for a suitable job that will help you to start. Many institutes and universities have campus interviews which are held by leading corporates. These corporations hire in bulk and train the candidates to handle the workforce with delicate care. Check out which companies are hiring. The job description will vary very slightly from company to company. The core will be the same because the domain is the same. The execution can also be very similar, it’s only the knowledge of the company and the procedure that it follows that will differ. That’s what you have to learn and master.
Work Experience
You must have extensive knowledge and work experience to get into management. For this, you need to work your way up the corporate ladder, just like any other field. You will have to start at the basic level and stick to one organization and work your way up. Young freshmen tend to get frustrated with the sometimes monotonous and mundane jobs that they are asked to do as HR trainees.
Hence they resort to job hopping. While this may seem very ‘practical’ to them, they have to realize that no major corporate firm is going to hire someone who has been hopping from one job to another very frequently. So, get a job and stick to it as long as you can. Get all the experience you can, learn the tricks of the trade and then no one can stop you from securing your dream job.
That was the most practical and fundamental answer to starting a career in human resources. Follow them and you’re sure to have a bright career.