Dear aspirant,

To begin a career in HR, you need to first assess if you have the right skill sets that the HR profession will expect of you. Doing a psychometric test will highly help you in evaluating your skills and assess if you are apt to stay in this profession. Mera career guide website has the provision of doing your psychometric test and if you do it, you will have a detailed report on your skill analysis. Counsellors here will further be there to discuss with you in detail about your report.

In general, to join a company in its HR department, you will need to have a relevant education background. The right education acts as the foundational skill set to work in this domain. Candidates with a BBA/BBM with HR, BCom with HR, B.A. Sociology, B.A/ B.Sc. Psychology, Bachelor of Social Work (BSW), M.Sc. in HR, M.Sc. in Industrial relations, M.Sc. Psychology/ Counselling psychology/ Organisational or industrial psychology and an MBA in HR are often deemed suitable to stay in HR profession. More recently students with a technical background such as B.Sc. in Computers, Information technology, Electronics, BCA, B.E/ B.Tech in Computers, Electrical and Electronics, IT are also equally welcomed into HR domain especially for technical recruiter roles. Therefore if you have any of these education backgrounds, you are highly eligible to apply for a HR fresher role.

Apart from the education skill sets, a HR profession will highly expect you to have organizing skills, multi-tasking, negotiation, excellent people communication, conflict management or problem solving and also dealing with grey matters like discrimination, harassment, employee grievance and employee counselling. If you can develop and demonstrate these skill sets, you are very much suitable to work in a HR role. Hope this helps.

All the best.

Dear Aspirant,

Human resource management is diverse and for a fresher to start his/her career in the HR, you will most likely end up in either of these three roles.

1. Sourcing analyst: You will start work as a Sourcing Analyst and then later upgrade into recruitment. As part of this role, you will be responsible for sourcing candidates from job boards or company's database to match the right skill sets set up for the respective vacancy. As a recruiter, you will initiate calls/ emails with prospective suitable candidates whose skills sets match the requirements and brief them on the job vacancy. If they are available for an interview, you will arrange an interview schedule with them according to their availability. Once the prospective interviewee agrees on the interview date, you pass their details to the recruiter in your department and to this end, your job is done.
   Students studying towards a Bachelors degree in B.A Sociology, Psychology, BSW, BBA/ BBM in HR are often preferred for this role. Especially in recent years these roles are handled by interns, i.e. students in final year degree who work as interns are often preferred for these roles.

2. HR Recruiter: As a HR Recruiter, you will welcome the candidate onsite for interview and will brief on the interview process for the day. You will also be responsible for briefing on the job requirements, salary and work commitments. And then you begin with the interviewing process. You will initially start with putting the candidates to aptitude tests or any other job role shadow tests that the organization has in principle. You will also do a face to face interview to assess the interviewee's skills for the job. You might also be involved in technical face to face interview if you are capable in handling it or else, you will put the candidate for a technical face to face interview with a technical interviewer or a line manager from the respective department. Once the interview is done, you are responsible of communicating the interview outcome to the interviewee and then also negotiate on pay with the prospective employee. Then, you agree with a proposed date of joining and do all the necessary formalities such as paper work, background checking on the prospective employee.

Students who have completed B.A Sociology/ B.Sc Psychology/ BSW/ BBA/ BBM with HR, B.Sc or B.E/ B.Tech in technical subjects, M.Sc. HR, Industrial and labour relations, Psychology, Counselling psychology or an MBA with HR are often preferred for the recruiter role.

1. HR Generalist: HR Generalist is a more intense and structured HR program mostly offered by MNC's. As a HR Generalist, you will end up working in every area within the HR domain such as recruitment and selection, payroll, industrial and labour relations, talent management, training and development. You will touch upon all areas of these HR management initially and as you gain experience, you will move on to HR strategic management positions or leadership positions.
   Students with a Merit/ Distinction from top Universities or B-Schools, and preferably with an MBA/ PGDM are often eligible to apply for HR Generalist roles.

Hope this helps.

Hi There,

Interesting question and the answer lies in the question itself.

No doubt the skills mentioned by the above counselors are the utmost important, like qualification and your personal skills like personality, communication etc.

But one important aspect needed to get a job and to sustain in the industry is

• Being curious
• Open to learning

Another aspect important to the HR profession, since you would be dealing with people is knowing a bit of Psychology.
Please note that do not carry the ghosts of the past happenings. Do not be Judgmental is also important.

Initially an in-depth theoretical knowledge is important to step into the industry but then sustaining is important.

Hope this helps.

Wish you good luck...........