HR after MBA - A refreshing rejuvenation!!

Ok. I am not expert at career advice and I have nothing planned for myself in the HR or MBA for the time being. You might ask then why this topic? I’ll come back to that. First, some novice & touch funny incidents from life on the subject.

During late college days and early days in professional life, I wanted to do my MBA and go into HR. As I retrospect diligently, I recollect that my inspiration to be a HR MBA was primarily because of TCS HR professional whom I met during our campus recruitment drive. I was awed by there presentation & communication skills and I simply wanted to be like them, confident, humorous, and well-groomed. Further, the kind of royal treatment they were getting from my college as compared to brutal one we used to receive as students, made me think that HR MBA & then recruitment drive at GNDU will be a nice way to square off things. Also, I always have had a knack to organize activities, convince & handle people to come to party or some gathering, and simply talk a lot. I thought that is exactly what a HR do & I will just take-off as HR Professional. When couple of people argued that “HR is an area for girls”, I simply responded “Isn’t that a good enough reason to go for it?” Well, those were novice days and things have changed a lot now. However, the seeds of the journey I have been on were sowed there & it is refreshing to remember those days.

Now, coming to why suddenly this topic. Today, I was approached by a bright, confident, and able associate in my team. He wanted to know about the future prospects of HR Professional and what kind of opportunities he may expect. I was both amused a little & felt bit nostalgic when he explained his reasoning similar to I used to have – A knack for organizing events, people management etc. However, he was more clear, interested, and passionate about HR than I used to be. While advising him, although I do not have any latest research, I expressed him that HR will be bright area in future because of two reasons.

First, as Indian industry is maturing and facing severe skills shortages, HR professionals are moving up the ranks of importance in CEO’s agenda. Second, I have read somewhere that there is a severe shortage of HR professionals itself in India. Many companies have been on rampage to hire engineers (in range of 10k to 35k per year), but they have not matched this trend in HR and at some point of time; companies will have to do so. With this bit of advise, I also observed that HR as a function is not only about organizing events and people management – as we see everyday our project HR doing. At a middle/ senior level, it is about policy design to better the employee satisfaction, help organizations hire & retain talent, and build competitive advantage.

Because of my limited knowledge on the subject, I provided him threads to explore – The best one I could. First, I told him about an independent HR Management Consultant – Gautam Ghosh, whose excellent blog I followed for some time. - http://gauteg.blogspot.com/. Second, I provided him contact of HR head for Tata Group – TAS. Third, I helped him with a lethal weapon – A combination of Google, Linkedin, and Orkut through which he can track the lives of successful HR professional and foresee whether & how he can reach there. I believe that if one network & research smartely, no information can stay hidden in today's world.

To conclude, I think HR after MBA makes a lot of sense with knack for people management, curious intellect, and pleasing personality. However, it is important that you have valid reasons to choose HR / any area of specialization and not crazy & weird ones such as working with lot of girls, squaring of things with your college :).

Ciao
~Vinit.