Struggling to Transition from Cabin Crew to HR: How Can I Overcome Experience and Salary Barriers?

Dear All,

Compliments of the day! I have been working as a Cabin Crew member for the last 9 years. Along with my flying career, I completed my graduation and MBA in HR in 2012. Since then, I have been looking for a job in HR but have not succeeded yet. Every place I apply to or go for an interview, I get rejected because of no prior HR experience or due to the salary package.

I agree that I have no prior HR experience, but a fresher can also get a job somewhere. Moreover, I am not a complete fresher; I have 9 years of work experience where I have interacted with all kinds of passenger profiles around the globe.

My second problem is the salary package. I acknowledge that my current package is high compared to a fresher in HR, but I am not expecting the same package. I am ready to negotiate. Please help me. It's demotivating now. It has been almost 3 years, and nothing positive has happened.

Thank you.

First of all, let me wish you the best of luck in your job search and career change. Don't get demotivated if you are not receiving job offers at your expected salary level. Your experience as a flight cabin crew is undoubtedly valuable and diverse. Present this experience in an appealing manner. Showcase examples of how you have handled difficult passengers or other highlights from your cabin crew career.

The Psychological Basis of HR Jobs

HR jobs have an inherent psychological basis. Highlight your ability to interact positively with people. Many HR problems stem from the way employees interact with each other. Consider adjusting your salary expectations. Prepare thoroughly for interviews. Research the company and demonstrate your understanding of the industry in which it operates. Reflect on where you may have missed opportunities in previous interviews.

Once again, best of luck, and keep persevering.

Further to My Suggestions

Also, see it from the company's point of view. They will have to pay a higher package as per what you are asking, but they fear that you lack experience and will not be able to produce results initially. If you can dispel the fear or doubt of the company in your interview, then they will hire you.

So, your focus should be on how your experience of dealing with new people on every flight can translate into good HR practice since you have the theoretical knowledge of HR practices. Your lack of experience in company HR practices can be compensated by your otherwise good experience in dealing with people.

Thank you, Mr. Nathrao, for your reply. I shall keep all your points in mind for my next interview. I agree I am a fresher in HR, therefore I do not expect the same package I am getting now. Sir, may I even request you to help me with any vacancies you know of where I can go for an interview.

My daily reading of CiteHR never fails to intrigue me. Here we have a posting from a person with no HR experience trying to get a job in HR, and no one will employ him/her! Yet, every week we have postings from people who, without any experience or knowledge whatsoever, get a job in HR and have to come to us to ask how to do their job. Doesn't anyone think this is strange? I know things "are different" in India, but come on, people, this is bordering on ridiculous.

Returning if I may to Neha's plight. Here is a person with 9 years of experience as an airline flight attendant. Think for a moment what this person does all day, every day. The answer is simple: they deal with people and their problems. They deal with nice people, they deal with rude and uncooperative people, and if they are trained correctly, they must do this with a smile.

What do HR people do? To a great extent, they deal with people and their problems. The only thing that changes is the workplace—an office or a factory instead of an airplane. Neha may not have the knowledge of payroll or PF, or all the other arcane stuff Indian HR people do, but I strongly suspect he/she has a wealth of other TRANSFERABLE SKILLS that would be an asset to any organization. The nuts and bolts stuff can easily be learned with the right training; attitude cannot.

A Flight Attendant is a SERVICE job. HR is a SERVICE job.

Neha, your resume and cover letters need to highlight your transferable skills and what you can bring to a new organization. Focus on your skills, not the fact you are a flight attendant trying to change careers. I can talk about this with some degree of authority, as many years ago, I trained nearly 100 ex-flight attendants from a failed airline in job search techniques. Almost all were successful in starting new careers.

My suggestions to Madam Neha were along the same lines. People skills are very important; the nuts and bolts of HR jobs, as you nicely put it, can be learned. However, remember that companies want readily employable people. The person they hire should be ready to work on Payroll, PF, and so on. Who has time for training the person? Call it a short-sighted approach where they miss the most vital skill of an HR person—people-handling skills.

My advice to Ms. Neha has been to highlight her existing service skills and display an attitude that will appeal to employers as a good prospect for an HR job. A few days on the job, and the person will be a good employee. The right attitude and willingness to learn are the most important. Salary packages can be negotiated.

Regards

Other seniors have given their valuable suggestions. Now let me analyze your post in my own way.

Positive Aspects About You

- You are highly career-oriented. You wanted to bring a positive change in your life in general and in your career in particular. For this, you have enhanced your education.
- A cabin crew's job is not sedentary. It involves physical activities. In spite of this, you completed your graduation and further MBA. This shows that you are a hardworking person. Kudos to you!
- To pursue your career in HR, you are ready to negotiate your salary. This shows your accommodative nature.
- Whenever other senior members replied to your post, you have posted your viewpoint also. You have not abandoned your post. This shows that you have a communicative mindset. You have understood the essence of communication.

Reasons for Not Getting a Job in HR

(This will involve my frank opinions, please do not get put off by reading them.)

- I feel that your career ambitions are misplaced. You have chosen the wrong direction. The right direction for you would be to pursue a career in sales or operations in the Airlines industry. You could choose your career in (Airlines) Training also.
- A career is built by taking benefit of the competencies built in past jobs. In contrast, what you would like to do is to start something fresh, thereby making these competencies redundant. The cause of your rejection in HR is the quaintness of your approach.
- Before doing an MBA in HR, I doubt whether you had made your career plan. The acquisition of a certain degree is just a part of the career plan. It appears that you have done an MBA (HR) under the assumption that the acquisition of this degree would give a passport to enter the world of HR.
- The career plan should have been made after doing market research. Why candidates in HR are selected or why their candidature is turned down, that you should have found out and then pursued MBA (HR). Look around and you will find that be it an ordinary factory or IT company, for every 100 employees, there are 1-2 employees in the HR department. Therefore, what made you think that you would be welcomed in this minuscule percentage and that too with no prior experience? Above all, you must have done an MBA (HR) through correspondence. It is a well-known fact that those who do a regular MBA course get priority over a correspondence course. When candidates who have done an MBA (HR) through a regular course are abundantly available, why would companies select a candidate who has done a correspondence course?
- There is a big difference between the course curriculum of an MBA (HR) and what an average HR professional does. Probably, you had no idea about it.
- You have been searching for a job in HR for the last three years and then raised this post. In your MBA (HR), you must have one of the subjects as Organizational Behavior. In this subject, you must have learned the theory of decision-making or managerial decision-making. Why did you not assess your own decision (of the choice of job search in HR) based on this theory? You need to revisit the concepts of management constantly. We do not learn management subjects only to get a good score. We have to implement the learning in day-to-day activities also.

What is the Way Forward?

Do not get put off because of my above said critical review of your post or career. I have tried taking a dispassionate view. From my point of view, you have the following options:

- Though you are an MBA (HR), there is nothing wrong with pursuing a career in sales. As such, cabin crews have a good command of English and they have a pleasing personality too. Secondly, for the nine years you have been doing a job that demanded physical exertion. Therefore, going to a field on sales call should not be a problem.
- One more option for you is to apply for the post of Faculty in MBA (Aviation Management). Who would not like to employ a person who had been in the thick of operations for the nine years?
- The next option is to apply for a job in ground operations in your industry. It could be in cargo operations also. I say so because you have an overall understanding of the rules of safety of air cargo.
- You could choose a job in the hospitality industry in the sales department. Initially, you need to work at a lower salary; however, you will be able to catch up with an old salary very fast.
- Are you good in Maths? If you are good in Maths then you may work in the department that optimizes the flight utilization.
- Go and approach HR of your company. Ask what avenues are available to grow. If there is hesitation to approach HR (for most ops staff, they have hesitation), talk to HR of another airline. Talk to some senior in the Ops and take his/her views on how to scale the ladder of a career. Possibly some better suggestions may come.

Final Comments

I hope my reply will satisfy you. It took one and a quarter hours for me to type this post. Have belief in yourself and do not get put off. You will grow surely. Thousands of years ago, Greeks used to say "Man know thyself first". Most of our problems arise because of a lack of self-awareness. The more you understand yourself, the more the success will be. Come back after 5-10 years and it would be our pleasure to read that you are holding some senior-level position.

For additional reading, go through my following reply:

https://www.citehr.com/525562-correl...rformance.html

All the best!

Regards,
Dinesh Divekar

Nathrao,

I agree that "companies want readily employable people." It is the same everywhere. These days, organizations are working harder with less staff, and the pressure is on. Often, there is no time for training. In an ideal world, they want to employ people who can "hit the ground running" on Monday morning when they arrive to take up their new job.

And incidentally, that is a good selling point in an interview. If you have the skills, then you need to tell interviewers that you can be productive straight away. That will be music to their ears.

However, you know as well as I do, from reading this forum, we have many members placed in HR jobs with absolutely NO experience or knowledge of HR, and who are posting on here for help in simple, basic functions. So that notion of employing people who are up to speed flies straight out the window.

You are right in that NOT training staff adequately to do their jobs is shortsighted, and it comes back time and time again to bite employers on the bum. They never learn. All HR people here on CiteHR should be working hard to convince their management that training staff is an investment, not an expense. A fully trained and productive staff will ensure a healthy bottom line and good profitability for any organization.

Regards

Firstly, you deserve appreciation for graduating and professionally qualifying in HR. A plethora of ideas have been shared by the knowledgeable members of this forum. I am confident that by now you have numerous opportunities to consider and keep yourself busy. There are already plenty of motivating messages in front of you.

Unless I missed this specific point, you must focus on getting noticed. While finding employment in HR may be challenging and employability is not an issue from your side due to your learned skills and experience, you should seek ways to present your candidacy uniquely.

Currently, money is not an issue for you, whereas your passion remains unfulfilled.

You can approach many NGO organizations that arrange free lectures to be given by you. Why not try this once a week? Obtain local body membership in a Management Association to develop contacts and promote your cause. Your bio-data will have new additions.

Eventually, you can start conducting training sessions on a part-time basis and later build a career.

Regards,
V. Raghunathan

Dear all,

Thank you for your reply to my post. All your words of appreciation are highly motivating. I am trying my level best to work on all your suggestions. However, I would request you to keep me posted with any job openings you come across that you think are applicable to my profile.

Thank you once again; I am looking forward to your help and support.

Kind regards

Thank you all for your reply. All your words of appreciation are highly motivating me. I am trying my level best to follow your suggestions. However, I would request you to kindly help me with any job openings that you feel will be suitable for my profile. Thank you all once again. Looking forward to your help and support.

I can understand your frustration, perhaps more than any of the learned members who have advised you in this column. It is because I worked in an airline and pursued an MBA in HR through correspondence and counseling! I could not enter my airline's HR Department because my department would not release me. The age was not on my side, so I could not change jobs.

Secondly, I would like to tell all those who think that an MBA by correspondence is inferior to a regular MBA that IT IS NOT SO. I cleared the selection test conducted by an external agency for the recruitment of Management Trainees in our airline. The candidates were from all kinds of business schools in India, including IIMs. Only a very few from many thousands passed the test. So, have faith in yourself.

I have doubts that your airline shall ever put you in their HR department because you are a sincere and good worker whom they will like to have in their frontline job. Therefore, I suggest that you take teaching assignments in management institutes teaching hospitality courses such as Aviation academies, etc. It would be a great morale booster for you. Even management institutes teaching traditional streams of management prefer practicing managers from the service industry. And remember, the service industry is a very big field. Your job satisfaction shall be at its best, and you shall not have to leave this high-paying job of a cabin crew. You can get additional jobs of paper setter/evaluator, etc. Don't think much about money initially (from teaching assignments) but concentrate on your lectures instead and try to win students' hearts. Rest shall follow automatically. The big plus is you can adjust lecture timings vis-a-vis duty timings by being a little diplomatic. So, all the best!

Best Regards

Learned members have posted good advice, suggestions, analysis as per what you have said. Now analyze each suggestion and correlate it to your strengths and capabilities, and accordingly decide. Keep trying for jobs to display your strengths and management expertise - you have people skills that are vital. I am sure soon enough you will inform that you have indeed bagged a good job of your choice.

Hi Neha,

I appreciate the post by Sai Bhakta as the idea expressed therein resonates with the principle of what I had suggested. So, it is time to begin in earnest. Start teaching or training somewhere without expecting significant monetary compensation. Initiating with free sessions can be a breakthrough to work in your area of interest.

V. Raghunathan

Career Advancement in HR

Hello Everyone,

My name is Reshma, and I am seeking some suggestions related to my career. I have completed an MBA in HR through correspondence and have a total of 8 years of experience in the Admin Department, all with Japanese companies. For the past 5 years, I have been working with my current company without any promotion. I aspire to advance my career in HR, but my direct HR experience is limited to 3 years with a previous organization 5 years ago. In my current role, I am stationed at the Head office, which also serves as the sales office, supporting the sales team. However, I do not have many opportunities to gain HR experience as the HR tasks are managed by our HR Manager situated at our factory location.

I am considering enrolling in an HR Generalist course to enhance my career prospects since I am struggling to secure an HR position at the same compensation level I currently have due to my lack of recent HR experience.

I would appreciate your advice on the best course of action for me at this point.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Regards,
Reshma