How to Become a Human Resource Specialist?

For an employee to become a human resource specialist, it is not required that you must be an HR Manager or HR Specialist at work as a very first step! All you need to have the following set of skills primarily:

Have Interpersonal Skills

You do need to have interpersonal skills neither at an expert level nor at beginners, but at least a mid-level of interpersonal skills you may have to be able to handle the Human Resource Specialist's job of interacting with people effectively.

Communication skills

Communication is said to understand what is not said! Having communication skills for being a Human Resource Specialist is a vital tool for you and the most inevitable one too. You may encode (say) and decode (understand what is said by other encoders in the channel of communication) the message / the information correctly along with the gestures (facial expressions/expressions through head or hand) and postures (whole body language like sitting standing position etc.) within that.

Problem Solving Skills

For becoming an HR professional, you need to have problem-solving skills as well. Though, they are a bit difficult to possess but not impossible at all! When it comes to people management in HR jobs work experience, needs to solve day-to-day problems between people at the workplace, as there remains a chance of chaos in all conditions where humans are working together, say office, factory, markets, production facility, or field stations.

Factor Orientation / Detail Oriented

Human Resource Specialist work is to be detail-oriented when it comes to recruitment or other hr related jobs. As a detailed cross-check upon the entering job candidates in terms of their educational documents, experiences, security check, etc. This all requires detailed orientation for the good sake of your organization and society at large, so you do not recruit any criminals, etc. 

Office Aptitude or Organizational Skills 

Office aptitude or organizational skills are necessary for being in Human Resource Specialist jobs. They are required to upkeep in the HR department the following jobs:

• Employee records management
• Files management systems
• Policies and procedural codes of conduct
• Paperwork
• Leaves management
• Training and Development of Employees
• Health management
• Transportation
• Utility provision
• General Admin under human resources generalists’ monitoring, if the case may be
• Employee orientation
• Employees’ Wellbeing
• Compensation and Benefits
• Payroll administration
• Records keeping
• As per your organizational HR needs

Therefore, all of the aforementioned need to have a good official aptitude for work as HR Specialists.

Code of Conduct Follower

Ethics comes last but foremost for Human Resource specialists' jobs to perform. Ethical boundaries, as defined by organizational rules, regulations, and policies in vogue, are the responsibility of HR Specialists to implement upon themselves and all the employees working in teams and organizations at large.

Above mentioned skills are prerequisites for people and personnel to become Human Resource Specialists. However, the following are suggested things to do for the new job entrants to become HR Specialists:

Step One: Have a Bachelor’s degree in human resources

For choosing an HR career at entry-level position(s), you need to earn an HR bachelor’s degree from a college campus, business school, university, HR-recognized institution, etc. It will help you understand the HR domain and its terminologies before you enter into the real job market(s). 

Step two: Skills development required for being an HR professional

Right after or with a college degree earning, you need to get onto the skills set needed for being an HR professional, as discussed above in this write-up.

Step three: Residency intern

When done with steps one and two above, find one internship program that may be on a volunteer basis if you are not able to get one paid! This is for learning on-the-job training skills related to HR. It is known as learning by doing. This is high time for you to translate theories and case studies, whatever you had gone through in your earning degree program time, into the real-time organizational HR experiences, before stepping into the specialists’ footwear of HR. 

Step four: Networking with HR professionals

Along with the aforesaid steps, you are required to develop your networking with HR professionals worldwide in general and in your nearest area specifically. This will help you get job opportunity posts and get learned from others’ experiences. The societies like SHRM society for human resource management and like may help people.

Job entry in HR

Find to be a job holder in HR at an entry level to get hands-on experience in doing HR jobs. See what are you good at within HR domain tasks and find one or two to be good at, polish your skills there, and get a growth brain with you with time to develop Human Resource specialists of a certain area as your career goal.

Growth commitment in the HR field

Now, when you have learned something about human resource-related assignments working in the HR department at some official facility, is the time to commit yourself to growth in some specialty within the HR domain, say you are very good at communicating with new people, it means you may be able to talk to new job entrants at their screening levels searching for their communication skills for example.  

Business mindedness

Bring yourself into the HR job market as a service provider having a mind like a businessman, creating therein a win-win situation where you are a client for the organization and the organization is a client for you. You are going to sell your services against the pay you will get.

Expectation Management

Manage your expectations. Don’t keep a high profile look up into the job market, rather look for the jobs as per your educational background, work experience, and the skill sets you have achieved in certain areas.

To conclude, if you want to work full-time or as a part-timer in the HR department, you must answer the questions are you committed to pursuing the educational earning, skills set learning, experiential-expertise getting, and growth orientation pursuing within the HR domain or otherwise.  

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports the projections that the employment of human resources specialists will increase by 8% from 2021 to 2031. For an average of all other occupations, this is the ever fastest growing one as per BLS reports with effect from 2019 and the projections for a decade so far. Moreover, HR Specialists are the people who will help employers in tailoring new policies, employment laws, payroll, taxes, complex systems and healthcare coverage, and much more.