10 Page Project Paper (Instructions, Rubrics, Myers Brig Assessment attached)

Self-Assessment 9.3: Is a Career in HR Right For You?

Your chosen career should optimally be based on your interests. The HR field, for example, offers many different career paths that require many different skills. The purpose of this exercise is to help you become familiar with the different career paths available to an HR professional and to see which path best fits your interests. This experience may help you decide if an HR career is right for you.

* Read each of the following questions and select “yes” for any statement that applies to you. After completing the self-assessment, read the feedback that explains how to understand your score and interpret your results.

* You must respond to all statements in order to receive full credit for this self-assessment activity.

Yes

No

1. Do I enjoy changing gears on a moment’s notice?

2. Am I open to learning about areas in which I currently have no expertise?

3. Am I comfortable leaving a project unfinished to handle emergency situations?

4. Do I consider myself fairly flexible?

5. Am I good at creatively solving problems when resources and instructions are scarce?

6. Do I have an aptitude for numbers?

7. Am I comfortable seeing other people’s salaries?

8. Do I have strong communication skills?

9. Do I have strong computer skills?

10. Am I comfortable working at a computer all day?

11. Am I well organized?

12. Am I detail oriented?

13. Am I comfortable constantly reworking projects I thought were already done?

14. Am I willing to pay for and donate my free time to professional certifications?

15. Am I good at taking complex ideas and making them understandable to the average person?

16. Am I good at expressing my ideas and getting people to go along with them?

17. Am I a creative person with strong computer skills?

18. Am I comfortable in front of an audience?

19. Am I comfortable working on one very long project instead of lots of small projects?

20. Am I passionate about learning and about teaching others?

21. Can I handle change? Can I handle it well?

22. Do I enjoy pulling together pieces of a puzzle?

23. Do I perform well in times of stress?

24. Am I a big-picture person?

Compensation Professional 

Score : 4 pts.

3-4Feedback : Your suitability to be a compensation professional might be high. 

HR Information System Professional 

Score : 3 pts.

3-4Feedback : Your suitability to be an HR information system professional might be high. 

Benefits Professional 

Score : 3 pts.

3-4Feedback : Your suitability to be a benefits professional might be high. 

Training and Development Professional 

Score : 3 pts.

3-4Feedback : Your suitability to be a training and development professional might be high. 

Organizational Development Professional 

Score : 4 pts.

3-4Feedback : Your suitability to be an organizational development professional might be high. 

Total score: 19 pts.

RANGE BASED FEEDBACK: 

17-24 pts.

Feedback: Your suitability to be an HR professional might be high. Interpreting the Result This self-assessment is designed to help you assess whether a human resource career might be right for you. The scores provide feedback on specific positions within HR, as well as an overall score. Here is a brief description of each of the types of HR positions.

· HR generalist – HR generalists take on many different roles, whether negotiating a company’s employee benefits package or interviewing a candidate for a director-level position. An HR generalist is supposed to be flexible and able to change gears at a moment’s notice.

· Compensation professional – Compensation professionals, who are very much in demand, design reward systems that attract, retain, and motivate employees. The job requires both good technical skills and good people skills. It also requires a great amount of number crunching, creativity, and ingenuity, because a compensation package that might work for one employee might not work for another.

· HRIS professional – HRIS stands for Human Resource Information Systems. With technology now such a key part of human resources, HRIS products help companies manage their personnel. Because information systems are now so sophisticated, there is great demand for experienced HRIS professionals, who must be very detail oriented and, of course, enjoy working with computers. Such professionals are involved in product selection, systems customization, implementation, and ongoing administration.

· Benefits professional – Benefits professionals are responsible for designing and implementing benefits plans. The job requires strong technical and communication skills.

· Training and development professional – Training and development professionals are responsible for building environments that foster learning, management, and leadership development. People in this field may be involved in distance learning programs as well as on-site, computer-based training programs.

· Organizational development professional – Organizational development (OD) professionals work with top management to make sure the organizational design adheres to the company’s mission, vision, and goals. Besides doing some training and development, an OD professional must be able to embrace change and work long hours.

The overall HR professional score is helpful because many small or medium size organizations need HR professionals who can perform multiple HR functions. If your score is low or moderate, you may not be suitable or enjoy HR work. If your score is high, you might want to give serious consideration to pursuing a career in HR. If you are wondering about pay, here is a quote from “ www.allbusinessschools.com/human-resources/salary/  ” “According to the 2016-17 Occupational Outlook Handbook from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median national annual salary for a human resources manager is $102,780. Actual salaries may vary greatly based on specialization within the field, location, years of experience and a variety of other factors.” Action Steps If your scores indicate you might be suited for an HR career, and if these brief job descriptions sound like something you would like to do, there are a number of things you can do to prepare yourself.

· Talk with your faculty adviser and other professors about what coursework is best suited to human resources. Many business programs have a course or courses in these topic areas. Take every appropriate business course that you can.

· In addition to business courses, course work in psychology and communications are very useful as well. In psychology, the most appropriate courses might have titles like Introduction to Psychology, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Work Psychology, Tests and Measures, Cross-Cultural Psychology, and Social Psychology. Almost any communications course will be helpful to you.

· Talk to a one or more current HR professionals. Ask them how they obtained their positions, what they like and dislike about their positions, and what advice they have for you.

· Pursue an HR internship.

· Visit the website for the Society of Human Resource Management. It has a wealth of information about HR careers.

Survey Caveat Remember your score on this self-assessment, while useful for self-understanding, should not be over-interpreted. First, every person is complex and it is impossible to fully capture your uniqueness in a short self-assessment. Second, you may well find your interest in HR may change over time, or you may come to understand what your interest actually is only later in life. Third, work in HR is not for everyone. If your scores are low, and if these jobs do not interest you, there are many, many other types of managerial careers available to you.

Total Score: 0 pts.

Source: Adapted from R. C. Matuson, “HR 101: An Overview, Parts I and II,” Monster HR, June 2002,  www.monster.com .