HR Job Qualifications-Are There Any?

I’m pretty sure that passion isn’t one of the HR job qualifications that people look for, otherwise we wouldn’t have need for the other posts in this series. If you missed them, we talked about:

HR job qualificationsSo what are HR job qualifications and how can you get them?

I think there are three big “must haves” to set someone up for success, whether in HR or not.

The three key HR job qualifications

  • Developing solid work habits around your strengths
  • Establishing credibility through solid, dependable performance
  • Taking control of your own personal and professional development

Think about the best leaders, managers, and employees you’ve ever met. Chances are they fulfilled at least one, if not all three, of these items. Again, they aren’t solely HR job qualifications, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t important.

Let’s look at each and how they can feed into your career success.

Developing work habits

Thousands of articles are created every single day focusing on topics like leadership and how to lead others. Yet so many of us are lacking the critical skills and knowledge to lead ourselves. Taking the time to learn your own strengths and weaknesses and how to leverage them into career success should be the very first step in a long, but very rewarding, journey.

Learn what you do well and make it your goal to do as much of that as possible.

Establishing credibility

Once you have a foundation of skills that you can use, it’s time to “get credible.” I personally measure credibility in a few ways, but the key one for me is how often people come to me for advice or information on a topic. Everyone can be a credible expert in their topic given enough time, but most of us need a measure of credibility today, not in weeks/months/years.

I believe it’s possible to develop credibility rapidly and with relatively little effort if you harness the strengths you have and find high-value opportunities to apply them regularly.

Professional development

You can stop learning when you’re dead. Until then, every day is an opportunity to learn, grow, and do new things. If you’re fighting for a new job or a promotion, and you have very similar qualifications to the other candidate, then a strong slate of professional development activities can help to set you apart from the crowd.

Every day is a learning opportunity, and if you don’t seek out ways to continuously improve yourself, you’ll be left behind.

So, what do you think of these HR job qualifications? Would these characteristics make someone more appealing for an HR role? As someone who works with a lot of young (and new) HR pros, I think so.

Digging deeper

HR job qualificationsI have developed a video course to help entry level HR pros find and get their first job and then knock it out of the park. If you are an entry level HR pro or someone looking to get their first HR job, I highly encourage you to check it out!

The course is made up of over an hour of video content, several bonus eBooks, and weekly articles and assignments to help the training “stick” for the long term. These skills will carry you through your entire career; you just need to take the time to learn them!

Getting Entry Level HR Positions (Video)

The only people who seem to know about getting entry level HR positions are those who already have an entry level HR job.

It’s a crappy system, and it needs to change.

As I said yesterday, we have to stop setting people up to fail. We need to help the next generation understand what it will take to break into HR and getting entry level HR positions. College isn’t preparing them. For the most part, parents aren’t preparing them.

Who will take up the call and join me?

Today I’m going to teach the newbies in the audience about entry level HR positions. Everything I know is based on my own experience over the past few years, both my own and helping others with getting entry level HR positions. In the short video below I share some basic ideas that have helped me immensely any time I had to look for a job change within my HR career. The three keys?

  • Networking
  • Professional Development
  • “Doing HR” wherever you are

Video: Entry Level HR Positions

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Digging deeper

getting entry level HR positionsI have developed a video course to help entry level HR pros find and get their first entry level HR positions and then knock them out of the park. If you are an entry level HR pro or someone looking to get their first HR job, I highly encourage you to check it out!

The course is made up of over an hour of video content, several bonus eBooks, and weekly articles and assignments to help the training “stick” for the long term. These skills will carry you through your entire career; you just need to take the time to learn them!

It’s easy to learn how to get a job in HR, but it isn’t necessarily easy to do it!

Set Up to Fail-Stop Sabotaging the Next Generation

Tomorrow night I’m going to talk with some local HR students about what “real” HR is like outside of the classroom and the textbook. We’re going to discuss what the actual workload is like for an entry level HR professional. Even though it is routine for me, it’s like a secret formula to these students.

And it has to stop. 

It’s been going on forever

I went to college purposely to get my degree in HR. I knew that’s what I wanted to do, and I worked my tail off to learn everything I could. And yet, when I got into my first HR job, I found out that 80% of what I needed to know about HR had never even been explained.

One of my earliest blog posts in my career (I’m not linking here because the writing style back then embarrasses me a bit) was on this topic, and I’m amazed that in the years since I graduated, not a single thing has changed for many students.

I receive emails on a weekly basis from a variety of people, and all of them are reading from the same script. “I got my degree and now I’m trying to get into HR, but all the entry level jobs require HR experience. How am I supposed to get in?”

You know it’s true. I know it’s true. And yet, here we sit. Some of you already have your job and have forgotten about those who walk the same path you once did. They still need you (and me) to offer advice and inspiration.

Let’s set them up for success, not failure.

What we can do about it

This year one of my personal goals at work is to evaluate and test an intern program. I recently learned of another local company with a wildly successful HR internship program, and I wanted to get some pointers from them but their HR person just left. If you’ve done this before and have ideas to share, please feel free to email me.

The interns coming out of the program rave about the experience, and this thing was set up as an unpaid internship, so you know the experience had to be powerful and valuable to receive that kind of feedback.

Look for opportunities to do exactly what I’m doing tomorrow. Contact your local university or community college and see if you can stop by and talk with a class or some students after school about what we do and why it is a great career.

HR-we need some PR

Look at the stereotypical “bring your dad to work” elementary school program. You have the “cool” ones–firefighters, police officers, etc. Then you have the “blah” ones in suits. If you can’t explain what you do to a third grade child maybe you need to stop and figure out what the heck it is you do! By the way, I’ve had to talk with my wife’s third grade class dozens of times, and I’ve tweaked my response to “I help recruit great people to come and do work that they love. We make games that teach helicopter pilots how to fly.” That’s pretty darn cool for the kids to hear, and it opens the door for me to explain at a high level what I get to do on a daily basis.

I know we’re talking about college students, not elementary school kids, but the idea is the same.

I once heard an HR “professional” tell a group of college students that “HR was a terrible career choice” and that they should “start over and pick accounting, finance, or anything but HR.” Yeah, that guy needs to quit his job, go home, and shut up. This is an amazing profession; I just think we need better marketing/PR.

This week/month/year, look for opportunities to influence the next generation. Even if 99% of the kids you talk to end up going into another profession (and statistically, that’s probably a good estimate), they still have a positive connection with HR lodged in their brains. It can’t hurt, right?

Digging deeper

Entry level HR CourseI have developed a video course to help entry level HR pros find and get their first job and then knock it out of the park. If you are an entry level HR pro or someone looking to get their first HR job, I highly encourage you to check it out!

The course is made up of over an hour of video content, several bonus eBooks, and weekly articles and assignments to help the training “stick” for the long term. These skills will carry you through your entire career; you just need to take the time to learn them!

Global HR Issues (Book Review)

Global HR Competencies by Dave Ulrich, Wayne Brockbank, Jon Younger, and Mike Ulrich

global hr issues competencies

Global HR issues? I’m like most HR pros, and I’ll freely admit it. When I hear the word “global” I tend to ignore the rest of what’s being said. Honestly, who has time to think about this whole “global” thing when I have an HR department to run right here and now?

But, like many instinctive thoughts, it’s short-sighted and a poor plan for the future. When the team representing the Global HR Competencies book reached out to me, I knew it was time for my attitude about the global HR issues, and marketplace, to change.

What I liked

  • The entire book is full of examples that will make you sit in awe of the amazing organizations across the world that are leveraging HR to accomplish revolutionary things. The global HR issues are being addressed every day by smart people in smart organizations.
  • One company (Tata) from India has line managers and HR executives work together to identify industry trends and opportunities for competitive advantage; they then turn those opportunities into cultural attributes and behaviors to hire against. That’s powerful on so many levels (tying management and HR together, developing a plan and actually implementing it, etc.).
  • At Tata, HR is seen as the custodian of organizational values. Kind of like the keeper of touchstones mentioned here. Goes along with my premise that while HR is there to keep a finger on the “pulse” and communicate culture as needed, they should not be the ones creating the values.
  • If you read nothing else, the six purposes of HR mentioned in the book are worth the time to check them out.
    • HR pros should be the best thinkers in the organization on people issues.
    • HR pros must be equal partners with executives to accomplish the org’s purposes.
    • HR needs to be responsible for the talent and organizational agendas.
    • HR should contribute substantially to revenue growth.
    • HR needs to create and sustain economic intangibles that are valued and rewarded by capital markets.
    • HR should see itself as a source of competitive advantage–and create practices that support that view.
  • Look for opportunities to outsource items that aren’t key functions, whether it’s finding a payroll services provider, looking at a benefits consultant, or hiring an accountancy recruitment agency.
  • There are dozens of great examples and topics in this book–more than I can cover here. But I want to close with this high-impact quote from this book that should make us all stop and think for a moment: What is my company’s plan for an integrated set of HR products and services that meet the needs of our key stakeholders? How do stakeholders really rate the quality of what we are providing? Do I listen to and act upon their feedback?  

The empasis there is mine, but it’s something that we all need to be called out on once in a while. Yeah, you’re doing that “HR thing,” but what do your people really think of it? Is it getting the job done, or are there some serious changes that need to be made?

One of my responsibilities is being involved in our Process Improvement Group at work. It has opened my eyes to the fact that we are each in control of our own area. Accounting isn’t going to come in and change the HR policies. Contracts isn’t going to swoop in and clean up that terrible onboarding process.

It’s up to you (and me) to make that happen. If your people can’t see the value of what you provide as an HR professional, then why the heck are they keeping you around?

Wrap up-Global HR issues matter!

Obviously if your organization has any intentions of working on a global scale, this book will help you get some insights into other regions of the world and how their HR processes differ from those in the US. Don’t lose sight of the fact that some of these companies are wildly successful in their piece of the world despite heavy competition–that challenge isn’t limited to the North American continent, these are global HR issues. I’m definitely going to be doubling back to read more about the HR competencies and how to fine tune those within my organization. Whatever the case, feel free to click here to get your copy of the book.

Click here for other book reviews.

How to Prioritize Work Projects (Video)

Learning how to prioritize work projects isn’t something you pick up overnight. I was reminded of this when a friend reached out recently and was looking for information on how to make use of a very limited time frame and what equated to an endless list of projects.

How to Prioritize Work Assignments (Video)

In this short video (embedded below; subscribers need to click through to view) I discuss some of the keys to prioritizing work while keeping your managers and project stakeholders happy.

In case you weren’t making notes, those three key points in the video were:

  1. Setting deadlines (and asking for them)
  2. Getting manager feedback
  3. Communicating more often than normal

Nothing earth-shattering in the video, but you’d be amazed at how often the little things like this will make you look like an outstanding professional compared to those who don’t take the time to do this well.

CEO’s Speak Out on How to Prioritize Work

In a previous book review (Perform Like a Rock Star) I pointed out the results of a survey of numerous CEOs:

CEOs rate the top two qualities they say will help someone advance in their career quickly as:
1) the ability to separate the relevant from the irrelevant
2) the ability to get the job done quickly

So, in other words, being able to prioritize and do work quickly will (statistically) be something that your CEO would appreciate. Keep that in mind–it’s a skill you must develop.

How to prioritize work in HR

In the above examples I was talking about some fairly straight forward items. But I’d like to think that HR has a unique twist. How do you prioritize between a safety training class, conducting a sexual harassment investigation, recruiting for a key opening, and answering open enrollment questions?

Yeah, welcome to HR.

Let’s take a consulting role with an outsider’s perspective. Assuming no serious safety or critical legal issues, how do you prioritize work that is a big, jumbled mess? Check out this short paraphrased conversation I had with a friend this week for how I would start approaching a large number of competing priorities.

Hey, Ben. I am about to fly to an out of town location to meet with some of our remote HR people. The last time I spoke to someone in HR there, they indicated that help was needed in their recruitment, onboarding, health/safety, employee engagement and retention, etc. The trouble is that I don’t know where to begin since it sounds like EVERYTHING needs an update Any advice? -P-

It’s a fairly common problem in the HR field to have this sort of thing, so I tried to offer a valuable response without prescribing too much since I am making judgments from a thousand miles away.

This is such an amazing opportunity for you! Wow. The hard part, of course, is prioritizing the various needs and working on the highest impact items first. And how do you prioritize between recruiting, health/safety, and retention? That’s the real question.

Since you’re coming in from the outside, you’ll have to rely heavily on what the people on the ground know and think about the situation. Ask them what key area you need to start with and go from there. One of my favorite questions to ask in that scenario is “What is your biggest frustration with how things are going now? If we could wave a magic wand to change it, what would be the ideal outcome?”

Sometimes with that pair of questions you’ll hear them tell you exactly what you need to start with. It isn’t always that simple, but I’m amazed at how many times it’s worked for me. Most of the time it just takes the right person to ask the right question at the right time. And I think that’s your role in this!

You might also point them to some of the resources on this page. If they are serious about making improvements then I can guarantee they’ll find at least one idea for making positive change within their work group.

Let me know if that helps or if I can answer more. This is such an amazing opportunity for you and I can’t wait to hear how it goes.

Again, that’s my view from outside the organization, but I think it’s a safe place to start and still have the opportunity to get the local HR staff working in the same direction.

Do you have a specific method for how to prioritize work projects? How do you do it?

Vendor Management Guidelines-Leveraging Corporate Culture

Vendor management guidelines? What? Isn’t this an HR/recruiting/leadership blog?

Well, yes. Yes, it is.

However, all of us have to deal with vendors, consultants, and other service providers at some point in our careers. I’ve been talking with our own Contracts/Subcontracts management pro at work, and we were discussing ways to help our vendors understand what we need from them. No, you don’t have to create a 50 page set of vendor management guidelines and rules to force them to align with your every desire (good luck with that if you try).

So the question remains. How can you communicate the importance of your core values and what matters to your organization in a way that your vendors, consultants, and suppliers understand and want to partner and support your goals? We talk about all that and more in this video.

Subscribers click through to view.

Communicating vendor management guidelines in a friendly way

(source link on YouTube)

So, what do you think? Are a set of vendor management guidelines in order, or would we be able to carefully and intentionally share our core values, culture, and interests in a way that helps to develop a strong partnership with our external resources?

Everybody’s Business (Book Review)

Everybody’s Business by Dr. Marta Wilson

Engagement is hard. If it was easy, there wouldn’t be dozens of books, webinars, and consultants on the subject. In the book Everybody’s Business: Engaging Your Total Enterprise to Boost Quality, Speed, Savings, and Innovation, the author takes us through some of the concepts and strategies for engaging employees and helping them to understand and grow the business. Each chapter concludes with an interview transcript featuring an expert on the various topics, so you get a well-rounded view of the problems and solutions presented here.

Everybody's Business - Marta WilsonWhat I liked

  • Your organization’s integrity is never stronger than the least ethical person.
  • This book is all about taking small steps with a big impact. They use Neil Armstrong’s “small step” onto the surface of the moon as an example while clarifying the fact that isn’t rarely as simple as a step; it normally involves pre-work and a strong foundation that allows for taking small, yet powerful, steps for your organization. 
  • At one time the following list was an list of “must have” executive/leadership characteristics. Now they are “everybody” characteristics: long term view, big picture mentality, delegation, motivation, resourcefulness, etc.
  • Want to make change across organizational silos? Start building the connections now before you need to leverage them for those major change initiatives.
  • Powerful quote: “There’s power in [even just] one person, so be sure that everybody can be poised to make a difference when there’s a difference to be made.”
  • One key role of a leader is to ensure that connections exist among their staff. Allowing staff to operate purely independent of each other means that the leader will always be the bottleneck on the group’s success. Facilitate connections and then step back to watch them succeed.

Wrap up

I would recommend this book for leaders looking at ways to get their people on the same page. This book contains a fair amount of theoretical concepts, but the contributors also look at some real-life examples of how these ideas play out. This would be a valuable tool for understanding how each individual person can contribute to an organization’s long-term success. If you’re interested, click here to get your copy of the book.

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Greenleaf Publishing provided this review copy.