For anyone studying human resources and getting a human resources
MBA, there are many areas to choose from when it comes to careers. You
can stay a generalist and climb the career ladder into a management
role, or you can distill the aspects of the career you like
best—teaching people, negotiating, the technical aspects, etc.—and
become a niche specialist.
The jobs below represent the best of both worlds. They are the best
jobs in human resources because of job satisfaction, career potential,
variety, freedom, monetary compensation and more.
10 Best Careers for Human Resources Professionals
Human Resources Manager
Why this career track is great: Personal satisfaction
While higher-ranking human resources executives may oversee
organizations and strategy, human resources managers get the benefit of
person-to-person interaction, helping employees directly. HR managers
coordinate and plan HR activities, then manage them once executed. This
may involve guiding employees through the hiring process, benefits
programs, training, labor disputes, and other administrative needs
important to workers within a company. HR managers, unlike the people
above them, have a direct influence and positive impact on the people in
a company. For people who are satisfied when they are helping others,
this leads to great social benefit, human connection and the
satisfaction of having a real impact on your fellow human beings.
Nonprofit Human Resources Expert
Why this career track is great: You are helping people while helping the world
A nonprofit human resources expert could be a recruiter, a human
resources manager, a human resources executive, or any other HR
professional operating within the nonprofit field. Such an HR
professional has many of the same tasks as an expert working in a
for-profit role, such as recruiting, administering benefits, training
and development, assisting with policies and strategy and more. The
operative difference is the in the nonprofit world, the human resources
professional is working for an organization that exists to make a
positive impact on the world around it, whether through health,
education, the arts, preserving cultures or any of the many things that
nonprofits do. So the impact on fellow workers is magnified in this
context. A nonprofit human resources professional truly has the
opportunity to impact people directly and, more indirectly, make a
strong contribution to the betterment of the world at large.
HR Consultant
Why this career track is great: You make a lot of money, when and where you want it
These days, companies are growing increasingly complicated, and human
resources departments are no exception. Enter the human resources
consultant, an offshoot of the management consultant who charges
companies a high hourly rate to impart much-needed services. Human
resources consultants may specialize in a variety of fields, including
benefits, employee incentives and rewards programs, company culture
after mergers and acquisitions, employee motivation, retirement plans,
recruiting and even the outsourcing of any of the many functions of an
HR department. This high-level individual assesses a company’s current
situation and offers and helps deploy systemic recommendations that will
get the company to its desired goal. The HR consultant, meanwhile, gets
to choose whom he or she works with, when that work is completed, and
what to charge. It is the HR path where freedom meets money.
International Human Resources Professional
Why this career track is great: You can visit countries all over the world and experience a great variety of people and cultures
The job of the international human resources professional may involve
recruiting candidates into global positions, training and development
standards across an international organization, implementing benefits
plans as national laws allow, labor relations, employee programs and
many more. This HR track involves the same kinds of tasks that a
national human resources professional might engage in, but with a great
variety of cultures, languages and locations thrown into the mix.
International HR is an ideal field for people who love to travel, speak
multiple languages and are adept at engaging successfully with a wide
variety of different people who adhere to different customs. Boredom is
not the operative term for this unique and exciting human resources
career path.
Human Resources Executive (Chief HR Officer or Vice President of Human Resources)
Why this career track is great: Money
If you’re good at HR and you want to make enough money for a vacation
home—and perhaps a boat—the human resources executive track is the best
job for you. The Chief HR Officer and, one tier below that, the Vice
President of Human Resources each on average make more than $200,000 per
year. These executive positions require an individual to devise an HR
strategy for the company, including policies, systems and goals. Every
aspect of a human resources department, beginning with recruiting and
moving through contract signings, training and development, benefits,
and more run through the CHRO (Chief HR Officer) or, if the company does
not have such a position, the Vice President of HR. With 10-20 years’
worth of experience and a proven track record of human resources
success, the HR executive can have a satisfying and, above all,
well-paying career.
Training & Development Manager
Why this is a great career path: If you love teaching, this is a the corporate path for you
Training and development managers help employees improve their skill
sets and careers. They do this by training employees in specially-held
classes, workshops, conferences and other kinds of gatherings. Training
and development managers are also sometimes in charge of designing the
most effective coursework for employees, given the content that their
employer wants to emphasize, while keeping training sessions
entertaining and informative. If you like standing up in front of people
and helping them learn and improve their lives, this career path is a
very fulfilling one.
Employee Education Consultant
Why this is a great job: It combines the fun of teaching with the freedom of consulting
In this CNNMoney survey, 60 percent of education and training
consultants said their job was low-stress
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/moneymag/0910/gallery.bestjobs_leaststress.moneymag/index.html.
Such consultants do similar tasks as training and development
managers—that is, they hold workshops, classes and conferences aimed at
increasing employees’ skill sets and knowledge—but without the full-time
commitment. Companies hire them on a contract or retainer basis to help
improve their employees’ skills. This means that the companies hiring
such consultants are already interested in keeping their employees
well-trained and happy, so they tend to be welcoming places to work at,
according to CNNMoney. The consultants work in an accommodating
environment and employees are interested in what they have to say. In
addition, training and education consultants can set their own hours and
choose their clients. If an education and training consultant only
wants to work six months out of the year, she can. Such freedom makes
this job a fantastic choice for anyone who both loves to teach and train
and wants independence in their position.
HR Entrepreneur
Why this is a great job—Once you build a successful company, you can hire someone else to run it and make passive income
Be it a headhunting firm, employee placement company, HR consulting
firm, or a professional employer organization (PEO), which takes on the
role of an outsourced HR department for a company, launching a
successful HR company can be a golden ticket in terms of career choices.
HR professionals with an entrepreneurial bent can set up such a firm,
find a stable of clients and, with hard work and tenacity, build their
firm into a successful organization. The ideal trajectory from there
would be to either a) step back from day-to-day tasks, let the firm run
itself, and glean a passive income from it—in effect retiring, or b)
sell the firm for millions of dollars to a bigger company that wants to
buy it. Either method spells one thing, early retirement, and that is
the dream of many workers and entrepreneurs. If you like HR and are
excellent with people, and have a killer work ethic and high risk
tolerance, the entrepreneurial human resources path stands as a
potentially lucrative, if difficult option. But with more and more
companies choosing to outsource their HR functions, this path remains a
promising one for years to come.
Executive Recruiter
Why this is a great career path: You can make lots of money while improving peoples’ careers
If you’re good with people and building relationships, a position as
an executive recruiter could be one of the most lucrative ways to make
friends. Executive recruiters are tasked with finding and filling job
openings for senior executives, the so-called C-level executives
including CEOs, as well as people in vice president positions. Executive
recruiters generally get paid on retainers or paid in full after they
have filled a position, and because companies are so interested in
finding good senior talent, these fees can be quite high. This is where
the making friends part also comes in. Executive recruiters want to
build such solid relationships with companies that when an opening
occurs, those companies call them first, at which point they launch
their executive search, contacting other contacts in other
companies—potential executives to fill that position—and trying to see
if they’re interested. Because this field is so lucrative, it’s very
competitive, so having a so-called Type A personality also helps.
Human Resources IT Specialist
Why this is a great career path: With the advancing role of
technology in HR, you’ll be much sought-after, highly paid and advance
quickly
While some HR jobs, such as HR manager, haven’t changed too much over
the years, the ever-expanding world of HR is adding new niche
positions, and HR information technology (IT) specialist is one of them.
Anyone with a bent for software or hardware and an interest in human
resources can combine their skills to become an HR IT specialist, and
enjoy the career rewards that come with it, including being sought after
and more often than not paid well. HR IT experts could be software
developers, systems administrators, IT architects, or have another level
of technical expertise that can be applied to a company’s human
resources systems, which may include calendars, databases, payroll
systems and the like. Although there isn’t necessarily direct
interaction with employees, this member of the IT team plays a crucial
role in supporting the human resources team, while facilitating the
technology that helps a company stay efficient and organized.
