Career Crossroads
Lately I have been feeling a little lost when it comes to my career in HR. I love HR and my current position but I feel unsettled because I don’t know what I am striving towards. I don’t know what I want to be when I “grow up” anymore.
When I was fresh out of my undergrad I knew I wanted to work in HR. But with little HR experience I took a good job with a great company in the Mortgage Industry and went back for my Master’s part time thanks in a large part to tuition reimbursement. About the time I was ready to graduate I landed my first gig in HR post college and devoted myself to learning all I could.
A few years later and while coping with being laid off, I focused on my job hunt and finding someplace stable. At the same time, I decided to pursue a secret dream of joining the Foreign Service and becoming a diplomat. I gave the Foreign service a couple of good attempts before deciding that the timing wasn’t right and putting it aside (at least for now).
Fast forward a couple more years, several short term positions, and several cross country moves later and I landed in a place and a role where I felt I could find some stability and spend some time developing my skills.
But now that I found that stability, what do I do next? What kind of development do I want to do? After a few years, what do I want to be doing and where do I want to be? These are the questions that are rolling around in the back of my mind. I don’t want to get complacent with where I am; I want to be preparing for my future. I just don’t know what that future will be.
All I know is that I’ve gained some very valuable skills in my HR experience that I want to put to use, but not necessarily in an HR specific role. I have zero desire to be an HR Manager and I don’t want to be a generalist. That leaves specialization in one HR area (Not Benefits, payroll, and FMLA please) or something else entirely.
I feel like an undergrad in school trying to pick her major. Anyone else out there find themselves in a similar spot and what are you doing to find a direction for your future?
March 13th, 2013 saat: 5:57 pm
I dunno if you know this about me, but I love honesty, transparency and thinking out loud. I assure you that you aren’t the only one faced with this decision. It’ll be nice to see where you go from here.
Chris
March 17th, 2013 saat: 4:03 pm
I totally understand where you’re coming from. I was actually thinking about going into HR since the degree I have now isn’t as diverse as I hoped for and a little stagnant. Upon reading this I realized that I was once again just picking a career but not really mapping out where I wanted to end up in the field or what specific role within HR I wanted to obtain. I’m currently in a stable job right now too, but I know this isn’t where I want to stay and I consistently crave for something more meaningful in a career. I just wish I knew what that “something was”. I feel like I’m in the middle of a mid life crisis 10 years too early. I did find the following blog post interesting: http://www.blogging4jobs.com/business/hr-isnt-dead-its-called-pr/