Redefining Success in HR: Beyond the Degree and Into Real-World Experience

Ever wonder if climbing the HR career ladder requires a framed diploma on your wall? Think again. In a candid exploration of the evolving landscape of human resources, I, Warren, debunk the myth that a degree is the golden ticket to success in HR. With wit and a wealth of experience, I illustrate how diverse backgrounds - from criminal justice to communications - can forge a path to triumph in this dynamic field. I dissect the seismic industry shift since the 90s, underscoring that it's the hands-on experience, not always the parchment, that counts.

But that's not all we have in store. I'm thrilled to roll out our brand-spanking-new texting feature, giving you a direct line to share your insights, stories, and questions. Your voice matters, and it just might feature on our show (with anonymity in the bag, if that's your jam). Before we hit pause for a brief holiday hiatus, a heartfelt shoutout goes to our dedicated listeners, the musical maestro of our theme tune, and the velvet-toned Andrew Culpa behind our intro. Tune in as I wrap up with a tip of the hat to the real value of learning in HR, and remember, the mic might be off, but the conversation is just a text away.

Chapters

• 0:02 Education in HR
• 14:28 Feedback and Contact Information for Podcast

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Had you actually read the email, you would know that the podcast you are about to listen to could contain explicit language and offensive content. These HR experts' views are not representative of their past, present or future employers. If you have ever heard my manager is unfair to me. I need you to reset my HR portal password, or Can I write up my employee for crying too much? Welcome to our little safe zone. Welcome to Jaded HR.

Speaker 2: 0:44

Welcome to Jaded HR, the podcast by one lonely HR professional who wants to help you get through workday by saying all the things you're thinking, but say them out loud. I'm Warren and, yes, I'm flying solo today. This will be a shorty, so you won't have to put up with me for all that long. Got one little rant, I guess I'd say for you today. Why am I by myself? Because I'm a moron and forgot to schedule something for this date. I thought I had them all covered, not so much.

Speaker 2: 1:18

But this episode is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. We have Hallie, the original Jaded HR Rockstar, we have Bill and we have Michael. So thank you to all of them for their support. You can follow the links in the show notes to support us on Patreon. If you want to do a reoccurring support or if you just want one-time support of us, you can just go to buy us a beer and send a one-time donation to us, so that'll help out very, very much. So I want to thank you for doing that.

Speaker 2: 1:53

But also last episode I did mention the new texting feature through Buzzsprout that you can send to, so I did activate that. You will see the text, the show link, in the show notes, right up at the top of all the episodes. So even if you're listening to something from four years ago, it'll now be there. You click on the link, it'll show up a series of six numbers or something like that that says do not erase, because that's how it distinguishes who the text is going to, and you can send us a message Now. I did test this and the only downside to this is it's one-way communication. I cannot text you back. The information I will get is your location, and it's kind of sort of close but not really so. For example, when I tested it, it gave my location as a town, 20 miles away from me, and then the last four digits of my phone number. So I'd be able to say whoever from Boston, massachusetts, and the last four of your phone number are this I'd be able to do that unless you identify yourself and let me know. But I'm looking forward to getting some text messages from you all to connect with us. We love hearing feedback from our listeners. Hell, that's actually how I got in touch with Cece for the first time. She sent me a DM and we started chatting and, like I said, she was a guest a couple times first, and then we brought her on regularly, so hey, so, anyways, one more piece of housekeeping before I get on to my little rant.

Speaker 2: 3:18

For today, there will be no episode two weeks from now, and that has been intentional. We're not going to record on weeks of holidays. We usually record on Mondays, and just with a holiday thrown in the mix with a holiday falls on a recording day, we're just going to skip it, and because we've already recorded two for May, hey, we'll let that go. So join us again after four weeks for our next episode and I will have a guest host. So, anyways, that's all the things I wanted to get started with today, all the little behind-the-scenes stuff to share with you. Let's see here.

Speaker 2: 3:56

So what do I want to talk about today? This is a question and maybe well, yeah, I'm going to be jaded about this this is a question I hear the most, whether it's online or I've been asked personally and it's about education and being in human resources. It's not necessary. Period, end of story. There's okay episode's over. No, I'm not going to let you off that easy.

Speaker 2: 4:22

But, yeah, education is not necessary to have a great career in HR. You can have a degree in something other than human resources. I know people have, say, criminal justice degrees or communications or all sorts of different things, accounting. I know people with all sorts of backgrounds and degrees that aren't really into that wouldn't directly relate to human resources, and they do just fine. Just as much as I know people with no higher education. They maybe have their high school diploma and that's it. And you know what? They're damn good HR people too. So if somebody were to say people too. So if somebody were to say, must I have a degree to enter HR? No, the road might be a little tougher for you at first, but once you get your experience in, hey, that's all that matters. So is it mandatory? No, does it help? Yeah, it helps.

Speaker 2: 5:18

But let me tell you, I graduated from college in the mid-90s and so much has changed in HR. I did major in business, concentrating in HR, and so much has changed from what I learned in college. I mean some things that we were talking about. When we were talking about, for example, I remember very specifically in an HR class discussing harassment, and back then there could be no same-sex harassment. It had to be basically back then then it had to be a male against a female. Now we know it can be same-sex, it can be woman-on-male harassment. It happens, even though most of the time the guys are the douchebags who do that stuff. So, anyways, things have changed.

Speaker 2: 6:14

You need to stay on top of your game, and education is just one piece of the puzzle. But do you need it? Absolutely no. I've learned and been able to apply to my career. Especially the last 10, 15 years has been more about what my experience is than what I've learned through the course of a formal education. So now, and that's only for bachelor's degrees. So let's move to master's degrees. Are they necessary? Absolutely not necessary. I don't have a graduate degree. Feathers does have a graduate degree and that's how he got into HR from another career. But do you need a graduate degree? No, don't need that either. It helps once again, but it only helps so much.

Speaker 2: 7:00

I actually will be attending grad school for the first time this fall and I'm not going to get my degree in HR. I'm getting a general MBA. I think that will be more valuable to me in the remainder of my career than any more HR, not to say that I know it all, but I don't think I'm going to really learn anything that new or life-shattering career changing for me in that. Now, granted, for my electives, yes, I'm going to take HR classes for my elective courses because I think that'll be really easy for me and I will get something out of it, I'm sure. But I wanted to test my theory as well, to see am I going to get anything out of this? I probably will. I mean, even the lameness of webinars or what have you I do get something out of. Am I going to get enough to justify the tuition? Probably not for that, and that's one of the reasons I would not, for myself, get a graduate degree in HR.

Speaker 2: 7:58

Now, if you are, say, like Feathers was and your undergraduate is in something other than human resources and you want to enter the field, that's a great way to do it. That gets you in the door. But education as a whole, unless you're doing something that's highly technical and I don't mean just technical in terms of like engineering, where, yeah, you need to have that degree in order to do engineering or accounting, yeah, you need to have that degree in order to do engineering or accounting. Yeah, you need to have that accounting degree to be a CPA those type of technical positions, absolutely. Hr isn't that?

Speaker 2: 8:31

And I really get turned off by people who flaunt their education as why they're superior to other HR people, and just go on Facebook and you'll see plenty of that in those HR user groups of I got my master's degree and this, I have several master's degree, od and who knows whatever else people have their graduate degrees in. But if that's the way that makes you feel justified, knock yourself out and makes you feel like a better human being, bless you. That's all I really got to say about that. But on top of that, I really think people need to be careful when getting a degree in human resources, and there are a lot of colleges out there of varying degrees and quality that are offering human resources degrees and a lot of those human resource degrees are not worth the paper they're printed on. I've talked to people who've attended some of these schools and I'll go ahead and pick on University of Phoenix, because they are probably the most sued college in the history of colleges and they put out they have a HR degree program.

Speaker 2: 9:41

Is that going to help you get a degree? No-transcript. Are you going to get something out of it? Sure, you're going to get something out of it. Is it going to help you get a job. Sure, it's going to help you get a job, but it's not going to do anything.

Speaker 2: 10:07

So if you're interested in getting into HR, I would just research my schools very well that you're interested in there's a lot of online ones, both good and bad and do deep digging. Don't just say, oh, this one's good and the tuition's cheap and whatever their little plan is, because it's a slippery slope with some of these schools. And am I saying I wouldn't hire someone if they got their HR degree from? Once again, I'll pick on University of Phoenix. No, I'm not saying I wouldn't, but if I have better choices out, know, it's not going to be that much of a plus to you. And even if you have your HR degree from some Ivy League school, is that going to help you much more? No, I'm really going to be looking for experience and things like that. So, yeah, education is such a slippery slope in HR and I've seen people who have been very successful with education and getting an HR. I've seen people who have not. And I just want to put that out there because you know, like I said, I'm going to be attending grad school this upcoming fall and I'm really looking forward to it. I just like learning overall, I like doing things and I think this will be a fun adventure for me. And, like I said, I'll take some HR classes and see how that goes and I'll definitely inform you all on how the progress goes.

Speaker 2: 11:31

Now I'm going to be taking the slow road. I'm going to be taking only one or two classes a semester. I'm not going to ever do a full-time load. What they call three classes would be a full-time load in grad school. I'm not going to. I don't see myself ever doing that and I don't see myself really taking classes over the summer because I want to be able to have some time myself. This is something I'm doing for my own personal gratification Plus, honestly, one of my long-term goals when I get towards those wonderful retirement years and if you saw me and all the lack of hair on my head and the gray in my beard, you would think it's not that far around the corner from me.

Speaker 2: 12:08

I'd like to retire tomorrow if I could, but that's not in the cards. But I do think one of my goals for when I do retire is maybe to teach adjunct on the side, to teach HR actually on the side. I think that would be a little fun for me and something I'd like to do, but definitely do some research on your schools. Don't just go by what's on their website. Find out about their programs a little bit more. Find out how many times they've been sued for bad admittance practices or other things like that, because you would be shocked to see and I don't think a lot of people are going to necessarily dismiss people coming from one of these schools outright I would hope not, because HR is one of those positions that you will learn something.

Speaker 2: 13:02

If you have no HR experience coming in, you will learn something, I would hope, out of it and you will be better for it. Is the amount of improvement you're going to see in your career, your life, equivalent to the tuition you pay? That's where you've got to decide for yourself. So that's one of the questions I get asked the most about working in HR is about education. Do I need my degree in HR? No, you just need the experience. How do you get the experience? Well, sometimes the education helps, but you know we've talked about so many people who dumb luck their way into HR for better or worse, and actually that's one of the topics of future episode I'm working on right now, but you have, oh, jamie was a great administrative assistant, so she will be perfect for our HR role and that works. And some people really take flight with that and sometimes it doesn't work because Jamie doesn't have the first clue what HR really does, and companies that hire people to fill the positions, like that also don't have the first clue of what HR really does. And companies that hire people to fill the positions, like that, also don't have the first clue of what HR really does.

Speaker 2: 14:08

So anyways, like I said, I wanted to keep this at a shorty episode. I think we're going a little long for that. So we will not be dropping an episode on May 30th, but we will be dropping an episode on June 13th with a special guest host. So be on the lookout for that. In the meantime, once again, I'd love to hear feedback from you.

Speaker 2: 14:28

All the feedback links are in the link tree, link in our show notes, but the quickest, easiest way to do it is just click send a text and send us a text. Love to hear your feedback from there and I'll read them on there. Unless you tell me don't read on there, then I won't read on there, but I want to hear some feedback from you. I think this is a great tool to do that, and if you want me to reply, put your number in the body of the text and I'll reply from the Jaded HR phone number. So, anyways, thank you very much for listening, as always. I want to thank the Underscore Orchestra for use of the theme song Devil to Devil, and the voice artist doing the intro is Andrew Culpa. Oh, and our best practice of the day is education. Nah, and from there I will just sign off. I'm Warren and we're here helping you survive. Hr1. What the fuck moment at a time.