How do I know if I would like HR?

[cokezero26]

Nurse wanting out. I’ve been thinking that HR looks like an interesting career, however how do I know if I’d like it, and how would I get into it?

There comes the difficulty in not wanting to spend £££ doing CIPD and end up not enjoying it. But then, how can I break into a HR assistant role with no CIPD?

Sigh…

The CIPD website has some good information on different types of HR roles.

Nursing is probably similar in some of the soft skills needed, and some of the downsides.

What do you think you would really like to have in a new career, and what would you hate?

Hi, thanks for your response.
Well, I like administrative tasks, and I don't really want to have clinical responsibility for people anymore. I'm analytical and I like details.
I'm pretty lost! I'm not really sure how I'd even break into it.

Admin post in the Nhs? Consider joining a Cipd branch and attend meetings.
contact the careers service for advice.

Some companies will pay for you to do your CIPD, you could start in as a HR Administrator and they will fund you to move up.

The only thing is, I would (personally) not recommend it as a career. I found it really stressful being the 'hall monitor' and having to do the dirty work for senior management when they wanted to get rid of people, or managers who couldn't actually people manage at all and referred every little problem to HR to deal with.
Not to mention the senior sales people who ignored policies repeatedly, but were allowed to get away with it because they were friends with senior management. Basically you get all the shitty behind the scenes behaviour.

I went into it thinking I was helping the employees, but really you are there to help the company.

*get to see all the shitty behind the scenes behaviour

I'm an HR Business Partner. I would have thought you could pick up some HR admin work to give you a flavour of what goes on. HR isn't always easy, you have to be hard headed and it's quite adversarial.

What about Occupational Health? I don't know the route in but so far as I know it's not clinical because you're not treating the employees. It's about advising HR/the business on how to manage various conditions in the workplace.

Thank you for your comments. I am really quite a sensitive person and not hard headed, and I do think I’d struggle with conflict, which means it probably isn’t the right career for me! Back to the drawing board I suppose..

OP there are different avenues within HR if you don't want to go down a HR Generalist route - you could try doing something more specific like Recruitment, or Learning and Development.

If you start out in HR Admin you can try and route your career in a specific way. It does depend on the company though, some smaller companies require an all rounder, while the big multi nationals have more streamlined HR departments.

@Farmageddon i think I’d be interested in learning and development! But should I be put off by not being a hard headed person?

Check out HR at your local NHS trusts? I now work in L&D but the entry level HR roles do not need CIPD, I did my level 5 through the Trust (no charge to me as through apprenticeship). Also check out People Analytics on the CIPD website although these roles are less frequent.

Worth having a look for "workforce" jobs as well, in things like your local ICB. Trying to fix the problems with the NHS workforce might be less adversarial than traditional HR and use the knowledge you have from having worked in the industry?

Your trust will have a unit called health intelligence or business intelligence or business analytics.
It basically works on pulling all the information from data sources together to provide information (dashboards) for clinicians and senior leaders
E.g. falls, workforce sick leave, theatre utilisation as well as working with people to provide one off reports.

It has no patient responsibility and is all data all day long.

Quality unit is another area investigate serious incidents and make recommendations for change.

I work in HR and HR recruitment. Before working in HR I was a secondary school teacher so I’ve been in a similar position to you being a career changer.

Entry level HR posts are competitive and if you don’t have or are not at least working towards CIPD level 3 you are unlikely to be offered a role - our last HR admin post attracted over 200 applicants - anyone without a qualification was automatically disregarded.

When I left teaching I was already working on CIPD level 3 and applied for more than 100 HR roles without success - no one was interested in recruiting an unqualified candidate with no experience in HR coming from a completely different field of work - and this hasn’t changed. I was unemployed for 6 months from the end of the school year until I managed to convince my first HR employer to take a chance on me, and I had to start on a temp role at rock bottom pay (although saw a good increase once qualified and made permanent). You will need to really sell your transferable skills as these will be ignored in favour of qualified and experienced candidates.

No employer is going to offer to pay for your CIPD level 3 because there is already an oversaturation of qualified candidates looking for work as HR admin and HR assistants. This is something you will need to consider - sorry if this sounds harsh but PP have suggested this is an option for you and it’s setting an unrealistic hope/expectation for you - you will need to pay for training yourself if you are serious about going into HR.

Once you are qualified and have been working as an HR administrator, it’s quite difficult to make the move to the next level - there are fewer roles with more applicants, again likely to need the next level of qualification.

That said, I love working in HR and it was worth the effort to break into.

The civil service have role profiles available online so have a look at these initially and see how your skills and interests match up. HR admin is a lot of data entry and using templates to send letters and contracts out, but there are usually opportunities for development and to get involved in more interesting projects as admin support. Get involved with as many of these as possible as progression is largely based on experience of ‘acting up’. Good luck x

Many thanks again everyone for your replies and taking the time to give advice.
@Littlegoth thank you, it’s really good to know that I will very likely need to do level 3 myself.
I’ve had a really good browse of any HR jobs in my area, unfortunately I am in a more rural area and only a few jobs have popped up, but they are all “HR advisor” positions rather than assistant/admin.
This seems to be the more tricky part, as currently there is not a single assistant/admin position going. I suppose I’d need to just do my level 3 and keep a good eye out for any vacancies?