Over at Punk Rock HR (another favorite at the CATS office), a reader posed the question,
“I was just wondering if you would suggest HR as a career? What are the pros and cons of working in HR?”
Punk Rock in turn made the question into a contest to see who could give the best advice. The variety and passion in the responses shows how HR professionals can run the gamut from happy to disgruntled.
Here are some of the pearls of wisdom offered by the site’s readers:
"If you are wanting to be in HR because you’re a touchy-feely person, then I wouldn’t advise it. Alternatives for that personality type abound. If it’s because you want to be in business making strategic decisions to solve workplace problems, we would love to have you."
"I would advise her to think of it as a career in babysiting. I hold hands when people get boo-boos, give them time outs and sometimes have to send them home. You also must have a high tolerence for crying, fighting and cleaning up messes."
"HR is not always what it appears to be and you have to take the good and use it to help counter-act the bad. If you can find that balance (and for me that took a couple years), then HR can be a great career to explore. But whatever you do, you have to do it like a rock star."
"In order to be a true ‘expert’ and have the ability to move on to bigger and better opportunities, it’s going to take some time and genuine interest in learning the in’s and out’s of HR." "The biggest con of working in HR is that it’s a paper mill. If you don’t mind paper being thrown at you all day, then perhaps HR is for you. Also, if you don’t mind fielding moronic questions, then again HR might be for you."
The winning advice was from Mary Ellen Slayter, who runs SmartBlog on Workforce. Ms. Slaytor’s winning advice was actually to read another blog entry, "Love Helping People? Don’t Go Into HR" by Lance Haun of YourHRGuy.
UPDATE: the article link above no longer exist. Read the re-published article here.
