A career in human resources is the most sort after job as it comprises of vast application in a company, and its job availability is everywhere.
Every company has got its own human resource department that handles every employee problem related to job satisfaction and productivity.
It also handles various policies and money-related tasks to ensure that at the end of the day, the company gets benefited from the business. So the human resources career is not a piece of cake.
But it is true that with every job comes its own set of pros and cons and in order to make sure that you are making a wise decision for your career, it is important you get to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of human resources careers.
List of Careers in Human Resources:
The human resource sector is a very important part of any organization. There are many people who are trying for a job in this department as it is demanding as well as fast-growing career. To gain a job in this sector, you need to possess the best of skills and abilities.
HR people are the ones who manage employees with people skills in an organization. They mainly focus on hiring, recruitment, employee benefits details etc. They act as a link between the organization management and the employees working in the organization.
An employee at the workplace is said to be happy due to several factors, not all employees working in different sectors are so lucky. But HR department jobs are best as they are not only appreciated for their work but are also given due importance. Most of the people in HR also find it as the best job due to other factors like job satisfaction, monetary gains, freedom, independence, flexibility, career potential, growth and more. Though they all differ as per the organization, but most of them provide them with these benefits and perks.
There are many careers or jobs available in the human resource industry. Though the designations are different most of them lead to having similar kind of job roles. Some of the best careers for human resources professionals are
- Human Resources Manager
- Recruiter
- Nonprofit Human Resources Expert
- Hiring manager or assistant
- HR Consultant
- HR Entrepreneur
- International Human Resources Professional
- Executive Recruiter
- Human Resources Executive
- Human Resources IT Specialist
- Chief HR Officer
- Employee Education Consultant
- Vice President of Human Resources
- Recruitment manager or specialist
- Training & Development Manager
- Talent acquisition manager or specialist
- Staff coordinator
- Compliance officer
- Human resources analyst
- Records manager or assistant
- Training manager or assistant
- Human resources assistant
- Employee relations manager
- Legal adviser
- Employee performance supervisors
- Human resources administrator
- Benefits specialist or assistant
- Human resources generalist
Different Jobs in Human Resources:
As per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median pay that human resources managers earn is $110,120 a year. Moreover, the number of positions in this industry could grow by 9% per year.
- Payroll Managers
- Employee Relations Managers or Distinct Human Resources Careers
- Recruiting Managers or Staffing Managers
- Training and Development Managers
- Compensation and Benefits Managers
Objectives and Functions of Human Resource Management:
Even though the designations differ in the HR industry, there are some basic objectives and goals that every employee or staff of this industry should look after. Some of the main objectives of human resource are,
- Maintain employee safety and good health
- Drive a high level of performance
- Recruit the best workforce
- Motivate employees
- Retain key employees
- Develop good company culture and strong workforce
Pros and Cons of Career in Human Resources:
| S.no | Pros of Career in Human Resources | Cons of Career in Human Resources |
| 1 | Interacting with people | Workload is huge |
| 2 | Diversity in the workforce | Handling the problems of various people |
| 3 | Helping people to find their aim | Acting as a mediator |
| 4 | Helping people to remain productive | Stressful job |
| 5 | Having a direct impact on the organisation's output | Learning about the company and its departments |
| 6 | Influencing various policies of the organization | Boring cubicle works for new candidates |
| 7 | Ensuring the top performance of the company | Politics |
| 8 | Chance to mould the future of an organization | Keeping up with growing competition in the market |
| 9 | Job availability | Continuous managing of every employee is difficult |
| 10 | Handsome salary | Tough for freshers to get in top organizations |
| 11 | Charm of facing new challenges | Difficulty in learning other department problems |
| 12 | Need only a bachelor’s degree | Solving constant conflicts among employees |
| 13 | Developing an understanding of human psychology | Balancing likes of employee and employer equally is tough and risky |
Benefits or Pros of Career in Human Resources:
The following are a few HR benefits that the human resource management career provides you.
1. Interacting with people:
It is the biggest and the best job for a person who likes to work and deal with people. In human resources, you get an opportunity to manage people working in the organization. This work can either be in terms of social work or it can be more clinical in nature.
Depending upon your degree and experience you may get to work in social welfare or maybe in tackling psychological problems.
2. Diversity in the workforce:
No other work in a company provides you with as much scope to interact with so many diverse people like a post in the human resource department provides you with. As your job mainly concerns with social welfare and human emotions, it gives you an ample amount of opportunity to explore variations in the workforce to get to know about different culture and religion at one place. This can be an exciting offer for someone who is somewhat into anthropology.
3. Helping people to find their aim:
As a part of the job in human resources, you get to interact with a person who gets frustrated with their repetitive task and gets distracted in their career path. So as a part of this team, you get a chance to provide direction to such lost entities and provide them with a sense of duty and responsibility.
Also, you help these people in achieving and aiming for higher goals that will help them in developing their personality and working skills.
4. Helping people to remain productive:
For the proper functioning of a company, it is very important that the employees work at their utmost productivity. But every day doesn’t go the same way and every employee need not have the same productivity level on each working day. So human resources people need to motivate those people to achieve great and to keep the productivity of the workers at best.
5. Having a direct impact on the organisation’s output:
The best thing about being a worker in human resources is that you may not be having the technical knowledge on which the company is based but you still get to handle the most important resource of a company – humans.
Getting to know talented personnel and ensuring their well-being in the company will aid in advancing a company’s motto and vision. You will not only be making a company better but also achieve higher.
6. Influencing various policies of the organization:
You are not only in the account of handling humans but also in the task of ensuring the smooth functioning of the company. So it becomes obvious that you get to influence the company in many decision-making processes.
You need to assist your company in the right path so that the company can make decisions that are in the interest of the company’s benefit and profitability.
7. Ensuring the top performance of the company:
As a human resource employee, you get to look into lots of matter that has a direct impact on the output of an organization. Hence, it becomes necessary for you to handle various variables that are operational in making a company work out and be at its top-notch performance which includes ensuring the productivity of the staffs, motivating people, ensuring that company uses the best policy to attract and maintain a pool of talented people as well as doing own task with utmost dedication.
8. A chance to mould the future of an organization:
You get to recruit the future employees of the company if you get a higher post in the company. So it is very important that you get to know the needs of the company and at the same time balancing the pools of talented candidates getting recruited in the company.
9. Job availability:
The above points clearly state the importance of your job in the human resource department of the company and thus it makes up a huge pool of job offer.
Every company big or small, technical or non-technical needs a human resource department to handle the employees and various other activities.
So the job demand is huge and it makes an attractive career to pursue by someone who wants flexibility and stability in their career regarding location and company choice.
10. Handsome salary:
This job demands a lot from the part of the department. Handling clients and their needs are more than just understanding certain parameters. You not only need to understand the company’s policies but you also need to understand human feelings and emotions.
Thus, companies usually pay a good amount of money to attract talented candidates to handle their required work.
11. The charm of facing new challenges:
Application of job in human resource management is huge and so also its scope in a company. This field is very much related to every department in the company, it makes it obvious that the person in charge can get the thrill of facing new problems every day. Other than people, a person also has to work on different accounting and policies work which make it even more interesting.
12. Need only a bachelor’s degree:
That’s right. To get into this field all you need is a bachelor’s degree in any course needed, mostly in economics or anthropology or any management course for higher posts. This allows you to spend less time on education and more on practicality and application of skills in real life. Also, someone who is not much into technical lines can choose to pursue this as a career.
13. Developing an understanding of human psychology:
Your work in human resources is all about handling humans and it makes it obvious that this job gives you the scope to learn about humans.
If a human is what interests you the most and you feel really good at understanding people and their problem then no job is better than the job in a human resource department.
Cons or Disadvantages of Career in Human Resources:
The following mentioned are few careers in human resource management disadvantages.
1. The workload is huge:
The working demand of the job is huge. Working with equipment or machine is completely different from working with people. There is no simple set of equations or list of instruction that can help you in dealing with problems related to humans.
So human resource managers and workers have to learn in their own way to manage and adjust with the difficult situation of this career.
2. Handling the problems of various people:
This job requires you to listen to the problems of a variety of people. Each person comes with its own unique problem ranging from administrative problems like not getting salary on time to emotional problems like depression or stress. This makes it very difficult for the human resource worker to adjust to a changing scenario very rapidly. Thus, it can get you into a state of frustration and low productivity.
3. Acting as a mediator:
Handling factory matters is a bit of risk as you not only need to fulfil the needs of any lower employee but you also need to make sure that the higher executives and management need not have to face any trouble. Thus, it makes it a very daunting career to pursue since you can get stressed out getting in between the two, acting as a medium to satisfy the needs of both the parties as well as deal with clients welfare as well.
4. Stressful job:
This ever demanding job makes it very stressful for most of the human resource department to fulfil the post requirement every day.
In some places where there is a high chance of a turnover or constant conflict of employees the job becomes even more stressful and at the same time asking for great input as you will be in charge of finding a solution to the problems.
5. Learning about the company and its various departments:
Though you may be dealing with people but in order to make sure that you are able to comfort people it is essential to learn about the company and its departments. This makes sure that you are able to understand the actual problem and give the solution accordingly. But many times you hardly get to learn about different department affair and as a result, it becomes a daunting task to learn about other department problems.
6. Boring cubicle works for new candidates:
For an entry-level job in human resources department, most of the work is related in handling paper works which mostly consists of sorting the resumes of candidates, ensuring proper time schedule of higher managers, regular paperwork tasks, and performing various everyday office works.
In an entry level job, a person rarely gets the opportunity to work with people or directly impact the output of the company which can make it frustrating for the candidate to continue at the job.
7. Politics:
Politics is present everywhere and human resources sector is no exception. The path to be in an effective human resource post, which is at a higher demand, is not easy as it is covered up with lots of office politics and messy rumour. This makes it difficult for the new employees to go up into the rank of higher position just only through sheer job and performance.
No doubt it is the quality of one’s working capital that matters but these things make it difficult for the people to achieve success in future life.
8. A need of experience:
Though the field is very lucrative but in the real market, most companies seek only those professional who possess certain experience in the field. So it makes it very competitive for a person to get a good career in the human resource department in big corporations.
9. Keeping up with growing competition in the market:
One of the most important functions as a human resource employee is to impart training to the other junior employees. Imparting training is not a difficult task but if you are in a sector that demands constantly updating the people then it may be a difficult task to make sure that every staff is capable of absorbing the knowledge, be comfortable in a new setting and also be at the top of their productivity.
Conclusion:
Therefore, we can see that human resources as a career is very compelling for those who love to do social work and working with different types of people.
So according to your ability and the human resources advantages and disadvantages presented here, you should decide whether it is in your best interest to work in the world of human resources or not.
If you are one of those people who wants to impact the performance of a company and who likes or is better in handling human-related problems then a career in human resources is the best for you.
Not only will you be working with lots of people, but you will also be in charge of different jobs that will have a direct impact on the performance of the company, helping an organization to shape its future and earn profits in the future.
