As you may know, I studied Law at university. Believe it or not, it is not a necessity that you become a solicitor or barrister.
I’m the type of person who wants to put my hand in everything. This is mainly because of the anxiety that I get from asking people for help. This is also from some of the experiences I’ve had, where people have used my asking for help as leverage, so they can use me for a favour later - I hate that. I know this is not good. “No man is an island,” if you try to do everything yourself, you’ll eventually run your mental health to the ground. So I’m obviously trying to do better and have faith in whoever I do ask for help. But, that’s why I try to educate myself about things I genuinely have an interest in.
That being said, I have a business idea that is almost completely unrelated to Law. I would like that to be my side hustle, which I hope will generate generational wealth and, have a positive impact on the economy of a certain jurisdiction. I also want to work in Human Resources.
“Why HR?” “Isn’t HR boring?”
If you had read my last blog post, you would know that I (almost) became depressed at my office job as a Maintenance Coordinator. With all my heart, there is not any amount of money that could drive me back to that company — that’s how much my mental health was impacted. Seated by my desk, depressed, I wondered who I could speak to about how horrible and unprofessional my boss was. My colleagues? I don’t think it would have been professional of me to speak to my colleagues about this but, before I was even settled into my job, I already knew how they felt. They disliked our boss and thought he was rude. Even external contractors would come into the office, and would sigh in relief that they didn’t find him there. So, speaking to my colleagues would do nothing. I also had a soft spot for my manager — a black man, who was creating opportunities for people like myself. There was no one to turn to!
I want to join HR because:
1) HR would have helped me and, I may have not resigned from my job. They would have worked with my manager to change the way he treats his employees.
2) There must be other people who are experiencing what I did.
Yes, I know HR is more than just complaints. It also deals with recruitment, appraisals and so forth. But, that is my motivation behind pursuing HR.
I feel like people who can relate to others are more successful in careers such as HR.
Sidenote: Everything is boring unless you have a genuine interest and/or passion for it.
May I just add, I know too many people who do not know what they want to do after university. Knowing this made me comfortable with the fact that I had found out what I wanted to do after my first proper job.
When I told my mum about HR, she looked at me. She then asked, “So why did you study Law?” Can I be real? I studied Law because I knew that my mum would be happy with that choice. So I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. If I had known I wanted to work in HR, I would have studied that at university. I may have not have even gone to university! Truth be told, I didn’t even know that I could study that.
When I started applying for HR jobs, I would get no response and/or straight rejection. It started to make sense - nothing on my CV related to HR. The only thing I could use was the Employment Law module I had studied at university. So, I have relied on the basis that Employment Law was my highest graded module! After this, I got through to the next stages of one or two job applications but, I’d fail on the grounds of experience.
So, I saw some online courses. Why does nobody talk about online courses? You can even do courses equivalent to degrees! A pop-up came up whilst applying for jobs on Reed.com. Reed has almost any course you can think of, some of which are free (sponsor me Reed). Even Wowcher.com has courses on there! So I have completed one HR course.
Not having much information made me start that HR course at Level 1. I thought I would have to start at the very beginning because, I knew nothing about it. But, you can start at whichever level you are comfortable, within reason. COVID-19 made me undertake more courses out of boredom; I am now doing an IT skills course and a HR and Payroll course.
Literally just adding my courses onto my CV has changed the way potential employers respond to my CV. I now get a lot further in job applications and, have landed a prospective offer.
I’m not going to rely on a prospective offer though! Times are uncertain as it is so, until I get something guaranteed I will continue to apply for jobs! I am trying to be intentional too! I’m applying for jobs either within HR or, jobs that relate to and carry out some HR-related functions.
Also, it’s not until after university that I found out that there are CV generators and Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). Some companies, instead of reading your CV first, put it through a generator. This system filters through the CV’s, searching for things such as keywords, to determine which applicants are the best match for the organisation. According to TopCV, this system rejects 75% of the applications/cv’s received. Reed also allows you to submit you CV to a generator (seriously Reed, sponsor me). You receive feedback, tailored to your CV, telling you how target your desired industry.
Sidenote: I’m even annoyed at the fact that I’ve used a statistic. To me, that system/generator and those statistics reinforces the idea that the workforce is just a workforce. The workforce is just a number and, numbers (like people) can be substituted. Although that system and ideology disgusts me, it’s better if we (the workforce) know what the system is. That way, even if we cannot change it, we can make it work in our favour.
Besides HR related studies, I am genuinely trying to educate myself on other matters… like slavery in BRITAIN (and I ooooop), which I didn’t know was a thing until last September, but that’s a whole other topic.
Also, I enjoy the theoretical aspect of HR but, mind your business if I get into the industry and, write a blog post saying I do not like it. I’m young with potential. I can switch careers.
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