Aiming too High?
Last week I was asked to go and speak to Degree and Diploma Human Resource (HR) Students concerning how to start their career in HR and what career guidance and development is available to them.
I must confess this is one part of my job that I love, going out and spreading the word about HR and the role it can play in business and the career it can provide. I always feel privileged when I am invited into Educational Institutes and take these opportunities very seriously. I feel that I have a responsibility not only to represent HRINZ but I am also representing the HR profession.
So for me, it is very important that I make a great first impression on these students. I tend to try and make the sessions as informal, informative and as relaxed as I can. I suppose in some mad way it’s like going on a first date; you want to make the right impression straightway as you want them to remain interested in the long term.
The class were great to speak too, as they were enquiring, enthusiastic and great to interact with asking lots of questions about what HR had to offer them and what HRINZ could provide them. The students were a real joy to speak to as they really got it; here was someone independent of the education system who really wanted to talk to them and boy did they make the most of this opportunity. A good few interview styles came out too!
As nothing is worse than been faced with students who you just know are there, not because they are interested but, because they don’t want to upset their lecturer by not attending, which makes you feel like you are trying to interact with a brick wall.
Anyway, the point of this blog was that even though these students were great, I was amazed at the career expectations they seem to have.
Most of them expect to be HR Consultants or setting up their own HR businesses within a couple of years of graduating. Their career ambitions and expectations blew me away, as I believe they are completely unrealistic.
From a HR practitioner point of view the only HR Consultants (I know and have worked with) who own their business have been in the HR profession have the minimum of 12+ years operational experience, generally are professional accredited by HRINZ and what they don’t know is not worth knowing. Their in-depth knowledge, experience and skill sets has been developed over the years from working in various organisations at various levels, which allows them to demonstrate their HR competence and expertise at a senior level which is what a HR Consultant is.
I did start to wonder where do the students get these ideas that they can be international jet setting HR Consultants from. As I am pretty sure that it is not from their lecturers or professors. So, is it a generational thing?
Could my point of view that their career expectations are completely unrealistic be because of my generational beliefs? That you worked your way up to the top by building up your knowledge, experience and credibility within your profession? Or is it because I have worked in the real world for more than 15 years and my point of view is grounded in realism? I would be interesting to hear your thoughts on this.
To wind up my blog, I will tell you that by the end of my student presentation, I did ended up feeling like the person who tells small children that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. As, I felt it was my duty to tell them that they will need to aim a little lower to get their foot in the HR door, as realistically no reasonable employer is going to employ them as a HR Consultant when they have no HR operational experience (other than the theoretical knowledge they are armed with) and then who knows in several years time their jet setting ambitions could take off.
Interesting but not surprising. In my experience Gen Y don’t have a realistic view on what work, a career and ‘entry level’ actually mean – you can’t walk into high powered strategic roles with no grounding in operational HR; without getting your hands dirty doing the grunt work of HR. Not surprising when you consider that they have grown up in a time where everything is in the here and now as opposed to having to wait for things over a period of time.
On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with having an optimistic outlook on what your future career holds and that keenness to succeed can have a positive impact on a work environment. No doubt some will achieve their goal of being a HR Consultant or owning their own business. Most will enter the work force, get a reality check and re-adjust their expectations accordingly.
Couldn’t agree more Tim, I don’t think Gen Y realise the importance of entry roles and how they build up your knowledge, competence and expertise within your career. How will be they be able to demonstrate their competency and knowledge at a senior level(in the future as a credible business partner) if they have not done any of the hard yards to get there.
Personally a bit of grunt work builds character and never hurt anyone.
Excellent article. I am literally in the middle of writing a blog post with a similar theme based on an experience I had earlier this week.
Crux of the matter is that HR continues to struggle for crdibility and to be strategically heard at the pointy end of businesses. My observation is that most HR graduates are not given the true perception of how HR is often viewed within corporates while at University, and as such are not well prepared at all on how to tackle this credibility gap when they enter the workforce.
95% of HR roles are operational/administrative. Those roles will seldom prepare the incumbents for the commercial and strategic cut and thrust that running a successful consulting compnay entails.
Being an HR student myself, I found this article really interesting. What University where you talking at? Because personally, neither I, nor many of my fellow classmates, have these expectations. To be honest, HR isn’t one of those careers that instantly conjures the ‘glamourous’, jet-setting imagery.
From my experience, many have a narrow idea of what HR entails- words like, ‘trade union,’ ‘collectives,’ ‘admin’ come to mind. A lot of students study HR with the idea of “helping people”- while this is a noble endeavour (and of course, this was where Industrial Relations, HR’s predecessor, had its origins), I don’t think students realise that in the end, HR is all about achieving an organisations goals.
But I agree that practical experience versus theory wins hands down. Much to my dismay, if I were an employer, I would not be hiring graduates into high HR roles. Though I have heard stories of graduates becoming Senior HR managers within three years- what do you think of that?
Give us Gen-Y babies a little more credit though: we do understand the value of hard work and realise-regardless of what career path we choose- that success is going to require perseverance!
Senior HR managers with a mere three years work experience after finishing at uni? Wow, the talent shortage that preceded the recession has a lot to answer for and this type of example will certainly challenge the future reputation of HR. Makes you realise how desperate some organisations must have been in the former tight labour market. As the old saying goes – ‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure’. So there was a silver lining to the recession after all – even if it was just rebalancing potentially dangerous recruitment decisions.
When I was a first-time HR Manager at the tender age of 25 (no under-graduate degree required in those days!) our CEO took all of the managers away for a two-day retreat (yes, it was the 80’s and it was Australia) where we did an exercise called the Johari (?sp) Window. From that exercise we gained an understand of what we knew we knew and didn’t know, and what we didn’t know we didn’t know, but others knew we didn’t know.
Unless they’ve got an under-graduate degree from the university of life, most tertiary students (regardless of discipline) don’t know what they don’t know about the realities of getting ahead in their chosen profession.
And yes, unfortunatley in the middle of the last decade, if you were in your mid-20’s you could get a role as a Senior HR Advisor with less than three years HR experience under your belt. For some it’s proving to be a career-limiting move as they were promoted beyond their own capability, and left to get on with the job without any support.
There will always be those rare individuals who have a level of awareness and personal maturity beyond their calendar years, who will get management roles in their mid-20’s. Our role as HR professionals is to spot those with talent, coach and mentor them, and ensure they are able to succeed in their chosen roles.