We will analyse the key differences between HR and Recruitment role and will suggest which carrier to choose.

HR Vs Non-IT OR IT Recruitment Carrier

Most of the newly qualified MBA's, prefer a job as HR Generalist. But most of them are unaware as to what kind of profile do they get as an HR Generalist being a Fresher.

As per our experience proper HR Generalist role starts after say 4-6 yrs of experience in the HR field. Various roles making of HR Policies, Training & Development, Performance Management, Performance Appraisals etc are all very interesting and important. But being a Fresher or say a 2 yrs experience person, one hardly gets an opportunity to work in any of these core and challenging HR roles.

To explain the same we take a role into Performance Appraisal- Do you expect a Company to tell a Fresher that you go out and do Performance Assessment of various people in the organization or to make performance standards or guidelines?  -  No
As a Fresher you may be told to collect some data from say various branches or departments, which will be helpful for an HR Manager and Senior Management to evaluate performances and do Appraisals.

Similarly if we take a role of making HR Policies. Do you expect a Company to tell a Fresher or a 2 yr experience person to make HR Policies for the Company?  No
This profile is also handled by Highly Experienced HR People and Senior Management.

Again if we take role of a person into Payroll. Payroll is primarily about compiling of various data and preparing salary sheets for disbursement of salaries utilizing the knowledge in the field. You may evaluate this role before you decide your future career.

Now let us understand an administration profile. They manage the facility in various offices or factories, their housekeeping, security, travel bookings, maintaining files of various executives, coordinating with MTNL, courier and other external agencies etc. Kindly evaluate this profile if its a good one for an MBA HR.

Against the general perception of HR Generalist being an high end profile it is actually for Freshers an average profile where they are primarily responsible for Data Management, Excel Reports etc. They may be involved in maintaining data of Onboards or Interviews or for some kind of MIS or Payroll or for Data Compilation for say Training needs etc.

Besides these days lot of HR Generalist are primarily involved in one or the other phase of recruitment or evaluating candidates or their resumes for various kinds of recruitments.

We list hereunder an Example of a profile of an HR Generalist working in a Good Company having 2 years of total Experience (You can yourself see if this is what you consider high end)

• Responsible for generating the appoinment letters, confirmation letter, transfer letter, address proof letters etc.
• Coordinating with the Bank in terms of opening the account and collating the data for Payroll.
• Updating the database of the new joinees in Peoplesoft tools Fusion 9.1 .
• Responsible for processing the PAN Card of the new joinees.
• Taking care of Joining formalities, Background verification.
• New joinees data validation for Payroll.
• Maintenance of employee database and updating the records.
• Maintaining the documents of the entire new employees and maintaining their files.
• Responsible for maintaining the check list of the new joiners.
• Fusion seperation, Hire, Job Data Changes, Personal Data Change, Position Data Change & E-Verification Related Activities.

 

Main HR Generalist profile may start only when a person has been with a company for many years and has gained trust of the Senior Management or if he actually comes from a background of say 6-10 yrs of experience.

Recruitment is probably the only profile wherein a person is involved in a very important aspect of recruiting people for the company, which is an extremely important role for any and every company simply because every company need to hire good quality people. You may hire a General Manager or a Manager or Software Team required for a Project and in anyway you will contribute by providing the most important resources for the company i.e . "Manpower".  If you as a recruiter are able to perform better than your peers and are able to deliver quality in hiring to your management, you gain importance in very short period of time.

Moreover, HR jobs are a bit more difficult to find as you need to get into a corporate directly. On the other hand, recruitment jobs are easier to find as there are 1000s of Non-IT & IT recruitment consultants of varied sizes from very small ones to very large companies. Like, I have been associated with Mukul Consultants, one of the leading IT recruitment consultants of India . I have had a very beautiful carrier journey, since I started as a fresher and I now, work here as a Recruitment Manager. I had an interesting role, regular growth, challenging assignments and a lot to explore and learn

Can I move from a recruitment career to a HR Generalist role?
Yes of course, as we have shown above that you can make your importance in the eyes of your management by being in the field of recruitment much faster, they surely can trust you for other responsibilities of HR Generalist, Performance Management/ Appraisals, Training & Development etc. Lot of companies actually prefer to shuffle roles of people after a certain number of years to give them new exposure and increase his enthusiasm and job satisfaction. Also if you are not an MBA you can start your recruitment career and say after 4 yrs of experience you may do a correspondance MBA for a sake of being an MBA.