Key skills for HR professional

HR: key Skills and Talents

HR professional jobs requires wide range of skills and talents. A broad base of business knowledge and background in the social sciences are helpful. The best HR professionals have excellent written and verbal skills, as well as proficiency with computers. Each specialty has its own specific requirements beyond the general background and skill set. Someone taking an entry-level job in HR may not be expected to already have all the specific knowledge described below, but must be ready to learn it quickly on the job or in targeted training courses.

Selection, Recruiting, and Placement Managers

good judge of character; tact; self-confidence; excellent verbal and presentation skills; ability to sell the organization and make cold calls; ability to build a network of relationships within the organization as well as with other organizations and prospective employees.

Development and Training Specialists

excellent interpersonal and verbal skills; good writing skills; good sense of humor; imagination; leading edge knowledge in training areas; understanding of the organization's future knowledge needs.

Compensation and Benefits Specialists

strong quantitative and analytical skills; knowledge of statistics and ability to communicate the meaning of the numbers in plain English; verbal skills; comprehensive understanding of how the whole organization works; knowledge of local, state, and federal laws and regulations concerning areas such as comparable worth, fair labor standards, and affirmative action.

Employee Relations and Labor Specialists

integrity; sense of fairness; ability to converse comfortably with people of all education levels; communication skills; negotiation skills.

Health, Safety, and Security Specialists -- excellent attention to detail; honesty; communication skills; knowledge of the various local, state, and federal laws and regulatory agencies dealing with health, safety, and security.


Key Skill Area Requirement

People skills: High
Sales skills: Low
Integrity: High
Leadership skills: Medium
Communication skills:High
Analytical skills: Medium
Tech skills: High
Writing Ability: High
Creative ability: Medium
Initiative: Medium





People, Paper, and Data

Human resources work is office work. While most people think that "people" skills are the key to being a successful human resource professional, in reality you need a mix of people and technical skills. You collect data, deal with complex paperwork, analyze information, and present finding to top management. For example, benefits specialists may conduct sophisticated actuarial analyses.

Boardroom To the Shop Floor

HR resource managers must be able to help top managers mold employees to effectively achieve strategic goals in the organization. Thus they must be able to give polished presentations. Simultaneously they need to be able to present human resource policies to and gather information from shop and factory workers who may be hesitant or unable to speak up, and they need to discuss issues and problems with employees one-on-one. Thus HR professionals must be able have conversations with employees at all levels in the firm from assembly workers to top executives.

No Gossip

HR professionals deal with sensitive information concerning compensation, employee performance and productivity, performance appraisals, problems at work, etc. Thus integrity and extreme discretion are absolutely mandatory in this job.

Rapidly Changing Issues

Local, state, and federal regulations about critical business-policy issues change rapidly, and keeping up with them is one of the central struggles of the HR profession. If you take a job in HR, you will need to help your organization deal effectively with issues including: changes in minimum wage that can have complex implications for how the company deploys its labor force; recent changes in the law regarding equitable pay and gender discrimination (for example, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay law of 2009); health care costs and and ongoing government policymaking on this issue; changes in labor relations law; evolving standards for how employers must deal with disabilities and medical conditions; shifting affirmative action laws, and so on...

Establish and Maintain Relationships

HR professionals must be able to establish relationships throughout the organization and maintain those relationships. Managers in the other functional areas of the company must rely on you to supply and care for their most important strategic asset: their people. Therefore, you need their trust. HR professionals who have a strong network of relationships across the organization can more effectively perform their jobs and and can gain the necessary credibility

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES WITH MBA (MARKETING)

By successfully earning an MBA in Marketing, you are going to get plenty of career opportunities. Candidates with an MBA degree in marketing are sure to enjoy excellent career growth in this highly competitive world. some of the job profile for MBA marketing professional include

Sales executive/sales manager

Mrketing research analyst

Market research analyst

Marketing executive/marketing manager

Advertising executive/advertising manager

Product executive/product manager/brand manager

New product manager

marketing communications managr

PR director


Most of the advertising agencies also offer ample job scope for marketing professionals in specialized areas like direct marketing, advertisement and jobs related to communications. MBA Marketing programs are also ideal for those who wish to make a career as a brand manager. This profession generally attracts youngsters as the job involves lot of responsibilities, glamour and lot of traveling.

How to choose MBA specializations

This is the most important question that any MBA (or PGDM, PGDBM, PGPM, etc... etc.) aspirant would need to have an answer to before starting this eventful journey. Believe me, Destination of this journey would completely depend upon this single very important answer.

The reason I thought I should touch upon this topic is because I myself had this dilemma about choosing the stream of specialization when I started out, and today, when I look back at the kind of raw, half-cooked information I had used to decide my stream, I really pity and feel sorry for myself. There was so much of misconception about the various streams. May be I had not done much of research or didn't have the right kind of network to give me a clear-cut idea.

So this is for all those aspirants who have decided to do MBA but need some more information to decide upon their stream.

1. Streams have got nothing to do with under-graduation background. Never decide your stream based upon your educational background. One big misconception people have is MBA in Finance suits those with Commerce background. It is not so. Yes, if one has commerce background, it helps in some concepts. But largely, people with Engineering background do equally well if not better.

In fact, most banks or consultancy companies prefer people with MBA (Finance) and Engineering background. The reason is that engineering subjects stress more upon logical and analytical thinking and practical approach to solve problems. Also, most of the class toppers in Finance stream have been engineers.

2. Marketing Management is not about boardroom marketing strategy planning. Yes, please get real. The career for a Marketing Management graduate starts with Sales Job initially, Hardcore Sales. And if FMCG sales looks too glamorous from outside, lets get some basics right. FMCG sales realistically would mean going to smallest towns in India in scorching heat, or flooding rains, or shivering cold in old, about-to-breakdown buses or overloaded jeeps, and selling products from shop to shop.

Yes, you do get rewarded for the efforts you put in your initial years. And you do get to make strategies, but that comes much later. You have to spend no less than 3-4 years in sales before being considered for marketing role. But if sales is not your cup of tea, think twice before opting for marketing.

If you are working in marketing, advertising or public relations, you know that these fields are very competitive. You need to have good marketing knowledge and skills in order for you to be success in this challenging career. Typically marketing students require a good command over communication skills, and ability to meet new people and convince them. MBA with marketing specialization can increase your knowledge and enhance your skills so that you are well prepared to face the challenges along your marketing career path.

MBA in Human Resources (HR)
Employees are the most important asset for an organization. HR department is responsible to select, recruit, train and cater to the needs of employees. Hence, management personnel in HR department require to good management of people, effective communication with employees, and good labor relations.

An MBA in Human Resources will combine the generic MBA with specialized human resources training such as employee training & recruitment, planning and mediation. You will also learn how to integrate HR strategies with the company overall human resources allocation plan.
Typically a student who want to specialize HR need to have good leadership skills, along communications and people management skills.

I hope this will help the aspirants get some of their basics right and make a more meaningful decision about their area of specialization.