How to Get Your First HR Job

How to get your first HR job without having HR experience. Everyone says you need HR experience to get a job in HR, but how could you get the experience if no one will give you the job in HR? I can help you with that. First thing you want to do is highlight your transferable skills. If you worked in customer service, or if you've done management, or if you've done administration, those skills are transferable and those are the skills that HR professionals use every day. Second, tailor your resume. Don't just list your job duties, show how your experience relates to HR. If you've done conflict resolution, there was an issue at your job and you had to mitigate the conflict between two people, show that. Put that on your resume because that is a skill that an HR professional will likely use in their career. Third, you want to invest in yourself. Consider HR certifications like a SHRM-CP or PHR. Those certifications go a long way. I would say over an associate's degree or bachelor's degree. The certifications go a long way. Having a bachelor's or associate's is great, but again, invest in the certifications if you haven't completed college. Fourth, network. Connect with other HR professionals. You'll find those people on LinkedIn, connect with them, have conversations with them, reach out to them, get their opinions on things, just whatever you can do to network. And finally, be willing to start entry-level. You can start as an HR assistant, you can start as a coordinator. I started as an HR assistant and worked my way up to what is now an HR generalist and I am trying to move into my next role, which will be an HR business partner. There are many ways to tap into an HR career without having any experience. And I just gave you five of them.