Career in Human Resources

Why don't we start with the career of making careers? Here is the story of a female professional in Human Resources stream. I thank heartily for her patience in the 90 minute interview.

Please note that the interview was taken in 2015, the role mentioned was a trial by Amazon and it has been automated since.

To give the outline, she is an employee of Amazon, India, part of their recruiting services. She is working with Amazon for their employee referral program currently. She has been in recruiting for past 5+ years. After 12th, she took B.Sc Physics in Chennai and did her MSW – Masters in Social Work program with specialization in human resources at Madras Christian College. From Campus, she was placed in Verizon as HR Executive. It was short stint with Verizon and next worked part of UK based placement consulting firm, Stepzone. As part of Amazon, she is managing tech and non tech recruitment.

Starting with her academic choices, she chose BSc, since she was not interested in Engineering. She could not find the scope of Interior designing, psychology, fashion designing and did not want to end in the rat race of Engineering. She decided to take up BSc physics and then work on what to do later.

BSc (Bachelor of Science) Physics - Madras University Affiliated

• No entrance exam, only based on 12th marks 
• Curriculum can be sailed through
  
• College provides placements but very few companies, IT based only 
• Options taken up after BSc 
• MCA 
• IT jobs 
• MSc 
• Scientist

She came to know about MSW in second year through one of her English teachers. After speaking to students in MSW HR, she felt it was meant for someone like her.

MSW HR (Master of Social Work) - Madras Christian College

• Any graduate can apply 
• Entrance exam - 30 MCQ, topics covered current affairs, basic algorithms, basic science 
• This is followed by GD and one on one interview 
• Interview questions - Why this college? Why this program? What are the future plans 
• MSW available across India. TISS (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) is considered the top institute, course title might be different 
• In Chennai, MSSW, Egmore and Madras Christian College 
• As there is no prescribed syllabus. Each college has its own entrance exam 
• Curriculum was difficult without orientation, with jargon about HR 
• 3 days spent in college and 2 days in corporate world 
• Students expected to do self reading on the topics and get updated themselves 
• Specializations in MSW - Community Development (CSR programs, NGOs) & HR 
• 2 Internship programs to be taken up 
• Students fetch on their own at Madras Christian College, professors might help in case student could not. There is no formal structure for the same 
• Not many extra curricular activities. Yearly event for alumni, students, faculty, corporates is conducted with table presentation. Student teams take up printing, event organization, publicity, hospitality etc for this event 
• Placements handled by college with 90% in 2008 
• Batchmates from MSW - Media company (movies), managing employee grievances, training and development, Recruitment, Payroll, Operations, Attrition analysis

If person is particular about stream, finding a job is difficult. Start the corporate life with no expectations. Movement between streams is very easy and there are opportunities. Since there are lot of contacts, you will know what is coming up.     

While she did not enjoy academic part in BSc, it was not true with MSW with lot more emphasis on work and practical approach. What attracted her to MSW was the soft skills based career. She did her internships with India Cements & Airtel.

First Job experience:

It was not difficult for her as MSW program was corporate oriented. The responsibilities increased at Verizon and as an employee, people look at you differently, adhering to deadlines. However, it was not overwhelming. She liked being part of a corporate.

A work day:

"First thing in the morning, I check my mail. I receive queries on policies, how to upload resumes, asking status updates on referrals. A good 2-3 hours goes in answering the mails and responding to people coming to the desk for similar queries. Other 4 hours are spent in sharing previous day resumes. Say 150 resumes to be reviewed and the same to be pushed to respective departments (eg JAVA, Analytics etc). Also I need to check if the profile is already in the system. Then the employee has to be updated about the status. This forms 3 days of the week. Rest of the days, I receive requests from departments for conducting sessions on getting referrals, designing programs for referrals, giving out goodies. The time I was working, Amazon was growing a lot. They were opening everywhere. I worked in the right time. I have so many things in my hand. For example, if I am bored at reviewing resumes. I had next thing coming up as lead generation program and then comes back to back meetings with employees and bosses. I had to find patterns and present to Manager. The profile induced innovation. Not a second went monotonous. Next was lined up."

On the whole, her role requires her to motivate employees for submission of resumes, increasing the referrals, performing basic check and sending mailers/newsletters to the employees, providing clarity on the openings.

Sweet spots:

“I safeguard a lot of confidential information. I help people in contacting the right recruiter. Job has a human touch. The three hours I mentioned above in talking to people, I do not feel working, I feel I am helping them. Human touch is a very valuable part."

Hardships:

The work force requirement is low compared to other job profiles. HRs are the first people to be thrown out if hiring freeze comes along.

Pay Grades:

It would not be a very paid job. The offer for her after completion of PG was lower than post UG offer from an IT firm. Since anybody can enter HR field, you will see no good money for initial 8 years. Only if you have passion, you learn a lot. At Amazon, the current pay is 4 lakhs. However she had personal priorities due to which she moved while being considered for promotions. Otherwise the scale would be 8-15 lakhs with similar experience. As you go along, based on organization choices, it increases.

Opportunities & Career Growth:

Since its not well paid, people move on average of every 2-3 years. Across industries movement is easy. For this stream, no one stays in one particular line. Few firms like Amazon, follow flat hierarchy while few firms even with less strength will have lot of levels.

There are few specialization courses that one can take like ISDP for advancement/improvement in career. Conferences are arranged for presentation of papers. One can attend these seminars and learn so much.

After particular point in time, if you have been in training & development, you can become entrepreneur and do L&D for corporates. Few of her friends after being in corporate for 3 years, took a course and started training and development courses.

Work Load:

Work load depends on the company. When all the systems are set in place, the growth is stabilized. However when the hiring spree sets in, like Amazon in 2013, work load got crazy. Work load depends on the company and life stage of the company.

Final Words:

“I really like my job. One painful thing is lot of people keep thinking that for HR job, you don’t have to work at all. Once in my old company, an employee was cribbing about his day list and said he wants his kids to become HRs, because HR employees need not work and enjoy. I don’t know where they get this idea from. We have to struggle too. We have a lot on our plate too”