“Human resources are like natural resources; they’re often buried deep. You have to go looking for them; they’re not just lying around on the surface.“

Ken Robinson, Educator

Pros and Cons of Working as an HR Manager

You think about becoming a human research manager but want to get more information on this job before making your final decision?

Great! Stick with me since I will show you all the pros and cons of being a human resource manager in the following article.

Human Resources Manager Job Profile

Advantages of Working in HR

1. Working as a human resource manager is not that stressful
2. You can work with many different people
3. HR managers can build a strong business network
4. Human resource managers can work indoors
5. You can make decent money as a human resource officer
6. Human capital managers work rather short hours
7. You have free weekends and holidays
8. Good work-life balance for HR managers
9. Good balance between computer work and human interaction
10. Decent promotion options
11. You don’t have to work in a hard physical manner
12. You can start your own business
13. HR managers can improve their people skills
14. You can help your friends with optimizing their applications
15. Teleworking might be possible
16. HR managers can work for many different companies

Working as a human resource manager is not that stressful

One advantage of being an HR manager is that your workday will usually not be that stressful.

In fact, most of the time, you will have more than enough time to do your work and will often also have time to take breaks whenever you feel you need them.

You will also not have the same level of time pressure as people who work in more technical fields and this means that you will be really able to enjoy your workday while many other people have to work at a high pace every day and eventually burn out.

Hence, becoming a human resource manager can make a lot of sense for you in case you don’t want to hustle at work all day long but rather want to work in a relaxed manner instead.

You can work with many different people

As a human resource manager, one of your main tasks will be interviewing people for job vacancies.

This will give you the opportunity to get in touch with many different people every day and can make your workday quite interesting since you will get to know people from all kinds of different backgrounds.

By talking to those people, you can not only learn a lot about technical things but you can also talk with those people about various other topics you might be interested in and get a different opinion on how the world works in general.

In turn, you will also become really good at figuring out which characters are really suited for a career in the company you work for and you can therefore contribute an important part for the overall long-term success.

HR managers can build a strong business network

Since you will be able to talk to so many people during your career as an HR manager, you will also be able to build a really strong network of people in the long run.

Quite often, you will interview people on management level and if you do your job well, those people will remember you and will work with you on several projects that have the goal to improve the working conditions for good employees to bond the best to the company for quite a long time.

By building those relationships, you will not only have excellent connections inside the company you work for, but you will also have a strong network outside this company since many people will quit their jobs and work for a different company sooner or later.

Consequently, you will have valuable contacts with many other companies out there and will often have almost freedom of choice for whom you want to work for in the future if you are smart and benefit from your network.

Human resource managers can work indoors

Another benefit of becoming a human resource manager is that you can also work indoors.

Hence, while fallers and many other people out there have to work under extreme climatic conditions, you will be able to work in a comfortable office environment and can use heating and air conditioning to make your time at work as convenient as possible.

You will even be able to enjoy a nice coffee or tea while many other people out there during times of bad weather and secretly wish to change places with you in this regard.

You can make decent money as a human resource officer

While you will not make a fortune, you can still make decent money as an HR manager.

In fact, if you are really good at what you are doing and are also willing to work hard, you can make much more money than the average person out there.

In turn, you will be able to enjoy some luxury and may even be able to afford to buy your own home and a nice car.

Consequently, working in HR can also make sense from a financial perspective, at least if you are smart enough to work in the right companies.

Human capital managers work rather short hours

Another upside to working as a human resource manager is that you will not have to work that much overtime. In fact, most HR managers only work 40 hours or less.

You may even be able to work only part-time if you don’t need the money of a full-time job and rather want to have more leisure.

In turn, you will have lots of time left to spend on your hobbies and while many of your friends will have to work long hours every day, you will be able to meet up with your favorite people after work and enjoy a cool drink with them.

You have free weekends and holidays

Not only will you come home relatively early, but you will also have free weekends and holidays as a human resources manager.

While you may take this for granted, there are still many people out there who have to work during those times and you should really appreciate the fact that you will have free weekends since it will give you the opportunity to make nice city trips or just to relax and to reload your batteries for stressful times that may be yet to come.

Good work-life balance for HR managers

In general, most people who work in HR don’t complain about too much work.

Instead, many HR managers are pretty happy with their work-life balance and some of them would even be willing to work more.

Hence, working in HR can be great for you in case you want to have enough leisure, not much stress and still make a decent income at the same time.

Good balance between computer work and human interaction

While many people who work in classical office jobs will work with their computer all day long, you will be able to get a healthy mix between computer work and social interaction as a human capital manager.

In fact, you will frequently have meetings with people from many different branches in your company to discuss how the future HR strategy should look like.

Not only will this give you the opportunity to make many new connections over time, but it also makes your workday more interesting and more interactive compared to a state where you just stare at your computer screen for the entire workday.

Decent promotion options

If you are really good at what you are doing, chances for promotions will also be pretty decent in this field.

In fact, good human resource managers can get promoted multiple times per decade and this means that you can get into leading positions in the company you work for pretty early in your life.

Not only will you be able to get high levels of responsibility, but you will also be able to make much more money from those jobs where you have the power to really affect how the future HR strategy of the company you work for should look like.

You don’t have to work in a hard physical manner

Another advantage of becoming an HR manager is that you will also not have to do hard physical work.

Instead, you will work with your brain and only type with your fingers on a computer keyboard.

Don’t get me wrong! Your work can still be pretty exciting.

Yet, you will still not have to work in a hard physical manner as many other people who work in craftsmen jobs and this means that you will often have much more power when you come home from work.

Moreover, also your risk of physical health problems will be much lower once you get older.

You can start your own business

It will also be relatively easy to start your own business in the human services industry.

In fact, you will need almost no capital at all to start a company in this field since you will barely need any material assets at all.

Consequently, if you are the entrepreneurial type of person who really wants to have his or her own business one day, gaining experience in HR can help you quite a lot in this regard, not only since start-up costs will be pretty low but since you will also be able to learn a lot about how the human mind works and which employees you should never hire for your own business.

HR managers can improve their people skills

Since you will have to deal with many different people all day long, you will also be able to greatly improve your people skills as an HR manager over time.

In fact, you will develop instincts that will barely fool you and can rely on your gut feeling in case you have to make a tough decision regarding the suitability of a candidate.

Not only will those skills be pretty helpful for your professional life, but they can also help you in your private life to evaluate whether your friends are real friends or just use you for their own purposes.

You can help your friends with optimizing their applications

Experienced HR managers can also help their friends quite a lot since everyone of us needs to make money somehow.

In turn, your friends will often have to apply for jobs and get through an application process before they can work for a company.

Consequently, since you will exactly know what those companies are looking for, you can give your friends valuable advice on how to behave during those job interviews and you can also make sure that job applications of your friends are optimized as best as possible.

Teleworking might be possible

On days where you don’t have job interviews with candidates or other meetings you might have to attend in person, you will also have the option of working from home, especially if you are employed by a big global corporation where teleworking has already become sort of a standard.

In turn, you will be able to manage your private and your professional life much better since you will just have more flexibility.

Moreover, you will also be able to save lots of money and time commuting to work in the long run.

HR managers can work for many different companies

Human resource managers are needed in almost all companies out there.

Consequently, you will have a huge variety of potential employers and if you live in big cities, you will often have an easy time finding a job in this field.

Thus, you will also have the freedom to work for many different companies while people who are more specialized will not have this privilege and their job options will be more confined.

As you can see, working in HR can make a lot of sense due to various reasons.

However, you should still not underestimate the downsides that come along with it that I want to show you in the following chapter so that you can get a more realistic picture of what working as an HR manager really looks like.

Disadvantages of Being a Human Resource Manager

1. HR managers don’t learn many hard skills
2. You are replaceable pretty easily
3. Questionable future job prospects for human resource managers
4. You need a college degree for working in HR
5. Student loan debt may financially constrain you in the future
6. You have to dress up for work
7. Can be problematic if you are an introverted person
8. You will not get rich as an HR manager
9. HR managers often have to deal with difficult people
10. You will often have to do organizational tasks
11. Working in HR may become boring in the long run
12. Difficult to get out of the HR industry

HR managers don’t learn many hard skills

One problem with being an HR manager is that you will simply not learn many important hard skills. While you will become pretty good at judging people, you will not learn many analytical skills during your HR career.

Not only can this be quite frustrating since many of your friends will learn much more at work, but it can also hold you back in your private life since you will often not be able to make profound financial decisions and other decisions that could greatly affect your overall quality of life.

You are replaceable pretty easily

Since many people want to work in HR and you will not learn many skills that will differentiate you from your competition, you will also be easily replaceable. In turn, you will have pretty poor job security and may get fired from one day to the other.

Hence, if you want to have a stable job and want to plan your life way ahead, you should rather not become an HR manager but go for different career prospects instead.

Questionable future job prospects for human resource managers

Not only will job security be low right now, but you should also not expect it to become better in the future.

Instead, it will likely become even worse since artificial intelligence and machine learning will lead to a state where machines will make personnel decisions on a regular basis and many people who currently work in the HR business will therefore become obsolete in the future.

You need a college degree for working in HR

Another disadvantage of becoming an HR manager is that you will also need a college degree for working in this field while many of your friends who become tilers or work in other craftsman jobs will not have to spend many years on theoretical education.

This means that you will have to spend lots of time and money on college education and you should therefore make sure that you want to work in this industry for quite a long time to make it worth the initial investment.

Student loan debt may financially constrain you in the future

Since you will have to get a college degree for working as an HR manager, you may also have to take on student loan debt.

While these student loans can make your time in college easier since you don’t have to worry about money during this time, you still have to pay them back sooner or later and this may lead to a state where you will not be able to afford to buy a home anytime soon since you will have to get rid of college loans first.

You have to dress up for work

Since you will represent the company you work for, you will also be expected to dress up and to wear fancy suits or costumes at work.

In turn, you may feel not comfortable in your own skin at work at all since you may feel like dressing in a way that is completely not your style.

Can be problematic if you are an introverted person

For succeeding in the HR business, you will also have to be an open and extroverted person who likes to speak to other people.

Hence, if you are an introvert and are not able to get out of your comfort zone, chances are that you will have a hard time with being an HR manager since you will simply not represent the company you work for well and you may therefore not get happy with what you are doing in the long run.

You will not get rich as an HR manager

Another downside of being an HR manager is that you will just not get rich.

While you will be able to make decent money as a human resource manager, you will still not make as much as doctors, lawyers or investment bankers.

Thus, while many other people will be able to afford a fancy lifestyle, you will just not be able to spend as much money in your daily life.

HR managers often have to deal with difficult people

During your HR career, you will also meet many annoying people.

In fact, while those people may be excellent in what they are doing, they will still often don’t have much respect and lack important soft skills.

Therefore, you will often have a difficult time at work showing those people who to behave to fit better with their team members.

You will often have to do organizational tasks

You should also not expect every workday to be interesting. In fact, you will often have to do annoying organizational tasks and you will also have to schedule and organize meetings.

Consequently, you will feel a little bit like the jack of all trades and people in your organization will often come to you with many things you actually don’t want to do.

Working in HR may become boring in the long run

Many people also get bored with working in the HR industry in the long run.

In fact, after a few years, it can be pretty hard to find any new challenges and this may lead to a state where you go to work in a pretty unmotivated manner.

Difficult to get out of the HR industry

Since you will not learn many hard skills during work, you will also have a hard time getting out of the HR industry.

In fact, many people get stuck in this field for quite a long time and often need to go back to college to get another degree before they are able to switch fields.

Top 10 Being an HR Manager Pros & Cons – Summary List

Should You Become A Human Resource Manager?

As you can see, there are many advantages and disadvantages of a career in HR.

In the end, you should evaluate all the pros and cons of being a human resource manager yourself so that you can make a profound decision regarding this important topic.

If you still consider becoming a human resources manager, you should also get detailed information about the salary, career prospects, future outlook, working hours, work-life balance, educational requirements, duties and job satisfaction of human resource managers.

Also make sure to check out the following articles to get more information on other job options:

Advantages and disadvantages of being a relocator

Advantages and disadvantages of being a chiropractor

Advantages and disadvantages of being a librarian

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_resource_management

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1085422/hrms-distribution-organizational-size-worldwide/

Own research and interviews.

About the author

My name is Andreas and my mission is to educate people about the different career paths that are possible in our current state of the world. In my opinion, people often make the mistake to choose their profession solely based on how much money they can earn from it instead of doing what makes them really happy.

This is quite sad and I just want to give people a more objective picture of how a fulfilling career could look like. I did the same when I started working in consulting after finishing my Master’s degree in Economics. However, I’ve quit pretty soon after that since I haven’t found true meaning in my job.

Now I can do what I really love to do and I want to enable as many other people as well to go this exciting path towards happiness instead of money.

I conducted various interviews with employees to give you a good impression of what working in different fields will look like and that you can make the best possible decision regarding your future career choice.

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