If you work in HR...

[Unsure42]

What would your advice be?

I'm currently employed as a specialist youth worker and run a youth centre. I'm responsible for supervision, recruitment and training of staff, programme planning, health and safety, monitoring and reporting and of course facilitating and working directly with high risk young people. I also am responsible for ensuring we have a good workplace culture and that everyone is working with shared values and to the same professional and ethical standards.

For a while I've been thinking about a change but was unsure as to what to move into that will give me more financial security and ideally better pay but I think my skills would overlap a lot with HR and I've really been enjoying working with staff to promote their development even where there has been challenges.

Would you advise this as something that my experience might line up with and what qualifications do you think I'd be best focusing on to be able to get a good job? I currently have a degree in English and a masters in youth work and I'm based in n Ireland.

Thanks so much!

HR jobs are almost always going to ask for CIPD at level 5 (unless it’s a bottom rung post).

No more so than any general manager, tbh. It might get you an in to an HR projects-type role somewhere you already work, but it won't get you anywhere at a different employer for HR roles. They will have tons of applicants with HR qualifications and experience.

The qualifications you'd get if you want to pursue generalist HR would be the CIPD diploma(s) at L3 and L5. The bad news is that loads of people want to get into HR and the entry level is very competitive even with qualifications, and you'd be looking at entry level.

I’ve been in for 20 years. Although I’m now pretty senior I’m not completely sure I’d make the same choices if I had my time again!

An admin level role in employee engagement or experience would probably be your best bet. There’s an awful lot more to HR than keeping employees happy. You’ll also benefit from CIPD L3/5.

good luck!

Hi, I have been in HR for about 10 years now and I fell in to a HR role originally which i now understand is very lucky.

Your experience has some crossover with HR and in an interview you could probably package some of this up as relevant experience.

For a qualification I would recommend a CIPD level 3 and then Level 5 (2 years of study). You could probably go straight in for a level 5 but I wouldn’t recommend this as there are some really good fundamentals learnt at level 3.

However, without some strong HR generalist background it would be very unlikely you would be offered more than an entry level role (HR Admin / HR Assistant role). With the details you have provided about your current role I think this would be a big drop in salary. HR is not a quick advancement career so it would take you a considerable ammount of time to get back to a salary level you are at now.

I love my career but it’s not easy and you may be asked to do things that are best for the business but not best for the employee, which can be difficult to come to terms with. I would say sometimes HR is more about business protection than it is about supporting employees. But that would all depend on who you work for!

I hope this helps 😬

I work in HR in education and to be honest a lot of those responsibilities fall in the curriculum/student areas. We need to make sure anyone recruited is all checked etc and deal with issues as they arise but have minimal involvement with students and student day to day experience.

Also a lot of HR is limited by budget and red tape etc and it is hard to find a role where you can just have free reign on staff development and training.

It really depends on the sector. One of my DC is a Head of People and has no HR qualifications. They're in the technology sector.

I assume he didn’t just walk into that.

I came in at mid level, did my level 7 based on experience and went from there.

I think your best route in would be the likes of a training manager and from there developing your experience into more rounded L&D via CIPD level 5 L&D.

It will be a harder switch if you want to be a generalist but L&D is a great role within the HR team. I’ve worked in it for 10+ years and love it!

Not sure what you mean? She - not he - worked her way up the same as everyone else from temping about 7 years ago But no HR role she's worked in has asked for CIPD etc, it's just not the norm in that sector. Progression is rapid in tech too (suspect that's why she chose it!), although the interview process is brutal - 5 or more interviews is perfectly normal.

I'd suggested she did CIPD, and when she said it wasn't necessary for the role she wanted I was sceptical. But she proved me wrong.

Sorry - I did mean to type s/he.

I’m surprised they’ve never encountered it. Tech companies certainly asked for my quals when I was consulting. And it was a requirement in a tech heavy financial services company I worked for too.

I would say some of the things you've listed are relevant but HR is really a job where experience counts for everything. By far and away the most common route is to start in a junior role and work your way up. If you were looking at HR Admin roles or HR Assistant roles then I would say go for it but it's very rare to walk into a mid-level role with no prior experience of working in HR.

CIPD Level 3 would give you a good introduction to HR and a decent foundation.

It can be a tough role. I've had a particularly hard week this week dealing with people issues and often there's a lot of negative press being in HR (normally from people that have had crap HR teams in the past!) A lot of my best work is totally behind the scenes due to confidentiality so you're not going to get public praise but it's about job satisfaction and I love that two days are never the same. Youth work does probably have a lot of crossover in that respect.

It can be a tough role. I've had a particularly hard week this week dealing with people issues and often there's a lot of negative press being in HR (normally from people that have had crap HR teams in the past!) A lot of my best work is totally behind the scenes due to confidentiality so you're not going to get public praise but it's about job satisfaction and I love that two days are never the same. Youth work does probably have a lot of crossover in that respect.

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