Starting My HR Career: Which Area Should I Choose for Practical Experience?

I am very confused as to which HR aspect I should start my career with. I am currently in my 2nd semester of human resources and don't know which topic to select for a summer placement. The topic should provide me with more exposure to practical experiences.

Kindly give me your suggestions.

Divya Bhatia

It totally depends on your interest. The profile usually a fresher gets is a recruitment or a generalist profile. Summer training is a means of cheap labor for the company, so you can get anything in HR as a profile, from doing surveys on various HR functions to live. Learning happens in all.

I see I'm not an HR professional. I'm also a student just like you. I completed my summer training last April. Right now, I'm working on my dissertation on "Human Resource Management Effectiveness." You can choose managing Human Resources in the emerging scenario (rapidly changing world). What do you say? Do reply to me.

Hi,

There are two things that I would like to tell you:

1. Choose an area that interests you. I had chosen training (this was way back in 1999) as an area and got good exposure as I had developed some training modules which were used while I was still there at the organization. So it gave me a good insight into what training is about.

2. If you are given a topic that might or might not interest you, make sure that you still learn everything else about it. Also, use the two months of summer projects to get an insight into the different functions of HR. Ask questions, and trust me, that will be better learning.

Hi Divya,

Summer training is an excellent opportunity to gain insights into the real world. As for "which topic to start with..." well, any topic could be good enough as long as it has enough breadth and depth. Projects that involve interaction with a sizable number of internal employees across different levels and external professionals from other companies are very useful. I can give you a couple of examples of potentially useful projects:

- Designing/Improving the Performance Management System
- Conducting an Employee Satisfaction Survey followed by action research
- Salary & Benefits Survey
- Training Needs Identification
- Best practice study in employee engagement

Hope this helps.

Cheers!
Rajesh

Hi, Divya Bhatia,

First of all, best of luck for training. You have chosen a very important and challenging field in which the sky is the limit. When it comes to summer training, before selecting a topic, you must consider your interest, available resources, time duration, etc.

According to me, first of all, you should ask the HR manager for work that adds value to the organization (you must work on a live project). There are many interesting emerging topics in HRM, such as:

Theoretical projects:
1. Role of HR manager in merger and acquisition.
2. HR manager and information technology.
3. Outsourcing of HR work.
4. Recent trends in recruitment and retention techniques.

Practical projects (which are possible to complete in a limited time duration):
1. Training and development.
2. Job satisfaction.
3. Induction.
4. Performance appraisal.
5. Compensation.
6. Industrial relations and labor-related issues (if you are in a plant).

Kuldeep Singh Rathore
MBA-MBL