Feeling Stuck in My HR Career: Was Moving to IT Staffing the Right Choice? How Can I Align My Role and Salary?

Dear all,

I have five years of experience in HR. I started my career as an Executive HR in a manufacturing company. After that, I had the opportunity to work as a Senior Executive HR in a BPO, where my focus was mainly on recruitment and employee relations. I spent two years in that role. Subsequently, I moved on to work as an Assistant Manager - HR in an organization where my responsibilities included policy-making and implementation, recruitment, training and development, and handling grievances.

I had a team of three people reporting to me in that role. Unfortunately, due to unavoidable circumstances, I had to leave that job. I have now joined a US IT staffing company as an IT Recruiter. The package, facilities, and environment here are very good. However, I am concerned about the direction of my career. Over the course of five years, I progressed from an Executive to an Assistant Manager, but now I find myself back in a similar role with a significant difference in salary.

I am unsure if this was the right decision. Can you please advise me on whether it was the right move? How can I align my salary and position to progress in parallel with each other?

Thank you.

Hello Rashmi,

The answer to your query 'Am I on the right career path...?' depends a lot on what YOU THINK is the right career path.

Please remember that there's NEVER a perfect answer for such issues—only the MOST APPROPRIATE ones.

You mention that you are back to the Recruiter's role BUT with a higher salary than as an Assistant Manager. If you notice/evaluate, the high salary is NOT SOLELY DUE TO YOUR CAPABILITY ALONE. It's more to do with the industry you are in now [since the company deals with the US market and earns in Dollars, they can afford such salaries—much like the high disparity/differential between IT and Non-IT sectors, if you get what I mean]. You didn't mention the timing here—if you are into night shifts continuously, you may wish to consider that factor since not many can handle night shifts for extended periods.

You also mentioned regarding 'what should I do to see my salary and position moving parallel to each other..?' Please note that the USA culture is to have very minimal levels of designations in the organization hierarchy, unlike in India where we have a designation change almost every 2-3 years of service—so, in effect, you seem to be comparing apples and oranges. [If you keep track of the happenings in the Indian IT sector, you may have noticed that anyone with an experience of 3-8 years is designated as 'Associate' in many companies—basically the US way of handling].

Another factor that would most likely crop up later in your career is this: when you put in experience of over a year or so here, much of your experience would be USA-centric. So if and when you wish to change to another company in India, this COULD become a big disadvantage, since most companies would prefer Indian HR experience—even if it's recruitment. So, by and large, you would be limiting yourself to any future career shifts to similar companies only—sort of narrowing down your future prospects. Per se, this is NOT A DISADVANTAGE, since it depends on YOUR PRIORITIES, like I mentioned earlier. If you wish to settle down in this specific focused domain, YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT TRACK. But if you want to have many options open, this COULD be a disadvantage.

In a single line, I would summarize as follows: please don't consider only CTC and Designation when making a career choice/decision.

I hope I have NOT confused things for you :-)

Regards,

TS