Many students, graduates and other people starting out with their first jobs, look for careers in Human Resources because they want to work directly with people and they have the belief in their abilities to manage it fairly well. However, to work in the human resources field, you will need to have skills sets beyond just people-person.

While being a people-person is definitely one of the most important skills, you will also need to have administrative, technical, communication, regulatory, and creative talents, among others.

young business men jumping into the air in excitementWorking in Human Resources

Some common tasks that fall under the ambit of Human Resources involve:

  • Recruitment of employees
  • Managing payroll, compensation and benefits
  • Developing and delivering organization wide trainings
  • Performance management
  • Employee relations
  • Promoting diversity

Some of the primary skills that employees who work in the HR division and want to see themselves grow in that field are detailed below:

Organization

Being in the HR department, you will have to work with filing systems, calendars, databases, documents and spreadsheets. And since the department has to look for the data of all employees working in the company, in many cases the entries in each of the files will have large records.

You will have to keep everything in order so that whenever a file is called upon, you have it easily accessible. Organization requires you to have time management as well as multi-tasking skills.

Multitasking

Since the HR department look after several diverse inter-related sub units (as mentioned above), you will be responsible for several different tasks each day and will be required to switch between them to deliver a specific output. On any given day, you could have to arrange meetings among the senior management, conduct interviews with candidates, search out for new resumes, resolve conflicts and complaints, update training calendar, and more. Being able to multi-task will make your life considerably easy.

Technical

Many organizations are implementing cloud based solution in their everyday operations. Enterprise Resource Planning systems are good examples, they integrate core services of a company as well as HR tasks. You will be much better off at your daily activities if you know how to handle software for the purpose of recruitment, training, producing reports and analyzing performances. It will increase your productivity and make you a better organizer.

Communication

Having good oral and communication skills are essential for a career in human resources. You will greatly benefit by being clear, concise and caring when at the job. You will be speaking with people throughout your office hours. And your communication skills will also come handy when attending meetings, reporting to management and interviewing candidates.

Conflict Resolution & Negotiation

You will have to look after the on-boarding process of new recruits as well as deal with problems that could erupt between employees. The ability to hear out multiple points of views and fairly deal with messy situations is an important resource for HR employees. There are also compliance of regulations, procedures, and legal ramifications that an HR personal has to keep in mind.