What Can You Do With a Human Resources Degree?

What Can You Do With a Human Resources Degree?

Human resources, or HR, is the hidden hand that helps businesses run smoothly by managing an organization’s most important asset: its employees. 

With human resources degrees, you can put your people skills to work as a cheerleader and coach for employees at every level, from interns and admins to managers and executive staff. 

Whether you’re just starting to explore this field or will soon be gaining work experience, you’ll want to find out all the unique ways you can apply your skills as a human resources management graduate and make the most of your degree.

What Do Human Resources Professionals Do?

A human resources specialist works cross-collaboratively across departments and with external contacts to hire, onboard, and manage employee relations. They often also manage benefits like health insurance, retirement planning, and compensation. 

With the right work experience, education, and human resources certifications, the HR field has a clear path for career growth and advancement opportunities. Job titles for HR specialists as you climb the corporate ladder could include:

• Human Resources Assistant
• Human Resources Generalist
• Human Resources Manager
• Director of Human Resources
• Chief Human Resources Officer
• Vice President of Human Resources

Best Jobs For Human Resources Graduates

Aside from the titles we’ve mentioned above, it can help to ask more specifically—what can you do with a human resources degree? Depending on your interests and expectations of a human resources salary, there’s a wide range of paths you can take as you begin your career. Whether you prefer to do a little bit of everything as an HR generalist or you’d like to be an expert in an employment niche, there’s an HR job for every interest.

Compensation and Benefits

While employees might be passionate about their chosen field, at the end of the day they’re working to be paid. As a payroll specialist, you’ll process and oversee the compensation of every employee in your organization, monitoring time clock punches, salaries, and ensuring they receive correct, on-time pay. 

Benefits specialists, on the other hand, administrate and are the employee contact for employment perks like:

• Health insurance
• Wellness programs
• 401k retirement plans

Depending on the organization's size, you might find the two roles combined into one position that oversees all compensation and benefits. 

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

More and more organizations are identifying the importance of diversity and inclusion policies in creating and maintaining an equitable workspace where employees feel safe and seen. If you have a passion for justice and equality in the workplace, you might want to consider a job as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Specialist. 

Many new positions devoted to the management, monitoring, and support of institutional diversity, equity, and inclusion are being created. The job posting site Indeed.com notes that their DEI postings rose an incredible 123% between May 2020 and September 2020, making it an HR field with incredible growth potential.

Job Analysis 

Pursuing a career as a job analysis specialist will draw on your knack for research and analytical skills while putting your human resources degree to work. You’ll compile and analyze data for your employer to ensure they’re:

• Keeping up with current compensation trends
• Correctly classifying employees and job types
• Crafting clearly defined job descriptions

Labor & Relations

If labor laws, worker’s compensation, and union negotiations sound like your forte, consider focusing your career prospects on positions in labor and employee relations. These positions may include titles such as labor relations specialist or manager of labor relations. 

In this role, you’ll be delving deep into the details of contracts, laws, and collective bargaining agreements, ensuring compliance and mediating complaints.

Recruitment and Talent Acquisition

Whether it’s scanning through hundreds of resumes and applications, scheduling and conducting interviews, or crafting compelling job postings, finding and retaining a skilled and dedicated workforce is a huge and crucial task for any organization.

As a recruiter or talent acquisition specialist, you’ll help connect qualified candidates to positions that are the best fit for their skills. Recruiters can work in-house or with contracted executive search firms (or headhunters) that specialize in executive-level recruitment and placement.