Talk to me about HR

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I have come to the conclusion that HR fits my skillset best. I have a great deal of experience managing people in weird and wonderful ways so far but now i need to become focussed and really pitch myself at specific HR roles - are there qualifications or courses which will help me build skills and spruce up my CV in this area? I'm willing to consider anything as I have some amount of flexibility atm and willing to invest.

Also talk to me generally about your experiences and the reality of HR if you wish! Thanks

You'd need at least CIPD level 3 to get even just an entry level role in HR unless you're lucky. Most HR people I know were extremely frustrated at getting their level 7 and this still not being enough to walk into a HR Manager role as even though the qualification is important, it's the experience - not just managing people - that's critical.

You don't say what level you'd want to pitch at but I'd be realistic, it's very unlikely you'd get any level qualification and get a role higher than entry/HR admin level. The qualification shows you know the nuts and bolts, the experience shows you know how to use them to put it all together. Experience managing people helps to a degree but only in the sense that it helps to guide managers through any tricky situations based on your experience, imo that's only about 20% of the role. I guess a bit like saying I'll spruce my CV up to become a Project Manager because I have managed some projects - great, but i'll be up against 50+ candidates who have the qual and more specific experience, although I might get lucky.

Good luck, it's really rewarding, frustrating, stressful, miserable, and enjoyable in equal measure. But as I say do be realistic so you're not disappointed, it will be a lot of work for relatively little payback at the start. It's a taken a colleague 5 years to work their way up from admin to manager and they had their level 7.

I have perhaps simplified by saying 'managing people' - i havent just been a manager, i mean far more than that but, y'know, mn post! But i do need to know the reality and yes, i know its unlikely to walk into a topnotch role straight off (when is that ever possible?) So im happy to commit to CIPD and such. Thanks!

I work in HR (senior advisor level) and I'd say you need really strong consultancy skills. You're guiding managers to make decisions, rather than making them for them - it's an important distinction.

Sometimes they won't want to follow best practice advise, there can be valid reasons for this, and you need to be able to consider other options than the textbook 'best practice' answer which can sometimes fly in the face of your technical expertise and training.... but at the end of the day your client /manager has to be happy with the solution or they will just see you as a blocker and cut you out of the loop.

That's the advice/ER side anyway.

Thanks, i think the plan has collapsed anyway as the company that took me on apparently cannot afford me so i may have to just stick with existing lowpaid work. :(

Sorry to hear that the plan has fallen through, OP.

That's the other side of HR though - disciplinaries, redundancies, performance management - you have to tackle quite a few rougher bits with the smooth!

Sorry to hear that about your job. In the long term if you want to know more about the qualifications and what HR actually do it’s worth looking at the CIPD professional map on their website. Good luck, it’s a very competitive function to get into especially at the entry level.

Everything seems to be highly competitive thesedays tbh!!