Human Resources (read time: 10 min)

Written By Second Day

So you want to work in Human Resources?

People are central to the functioning of any organization. Therefore, one of the best ways to contribute to a social impact mission is to recruit and support the best people available on behalf of an organization. As a human resources worker, you will be intertwined into each piece of the overall team and see how it functions from the inside. You’ll also be able to make the people at your organization feel valued and their concerns heard. Moreover, within this field, there’s room to grow, specialize, and shift within an organization’s structure. As an HR professional, you can find a work-life balance while getting your foot in the door at a nonprofit and ultimately pursuing a mission-driven career.

If this career path sounds exciting to you, this guide will take you through everything you need to know about working in human resources. To inform our work, Second Day has spoken to experts in the field and gathered the best information out there for upcoming graduates and recent graduates. First, the guide will take you through the different entry-level positions to look out for in this field. Then, we’ll provide tips on actually getting those jobs in human resources. We’ll finish with our next three steps: actionable items you can take to make progress towards finding your first job in human resources. Let’s get started!

This guide was written by Rachel Angle (SDIF '20) in partnership with the Second Day team.

Many thanks to experts in the field who supported this work:

  • Danielle Antico, Human Resources Manager, Third Sector Capital Partners

  • Isaak Kifle, Senior Human Resources Associate, J-PAL North America at MIT

  • Nicole Phillips, Senior Director of Human Resources at The Bridgespan Group

  • Blythe Rudloff, Office & HR Manager, The Bail Project

What types of roles exist in HR?

Day-to-day roles and responsibilities of an HR professional

The role of an HR team can usually be broken down into a few key tasks or roles. At most social impact organizations, an HR Associate or Coordinator would be responsible for some combination of these responsibilities.

RECRUITING/TALENT ACQUISITION

The HR staff is often responsible for each step of the recruiting process. This means working with the team lead to develop a job description, posting on various job boards/websites, tracking candidates as they come in, scheduling/conducting phone screens and other interview rounds, helping to select candidates, and contacting references. Ask in the interview process if your organization has an applicant tracking system (ATS) so you know if this work will have to be done manually. Recruitment is a place where you can help shape the organization’s mission by determining which people come on board and serve as the face of the organization to external candidates. This is a place of great opportunity to make hiring practices more effective and equitable across organizations, where individual team leaders rarely give this as much thought. It’s also helpful in any future job searches to understand what’s happening on the back-end. If you choose to specialize in recruitment, you may continue to work directly with an organization or become an independent recruiting consultant or headhunter.


PAYROLL AND BENEFITS

If recruitment is all about getting the right people to your organization, this next piece of HR work is key in keeping employees happy and cared for. For a long time, nonprofits have been able to provide compelling benefits to support their staff when it is too hard to compete with large corporations on pay. A new generation of employees have shifted what benefits they care about and so evaluating different creative options is important for the organization. Additionally, the complexities of health insurance and staff working remotely from different states have increased the need for a technical skillset to understand different state regulations. As the person responsible for making sure people’s benefits and pay arrive on time, you’ll spend time maintaining databases and proper documentation for all employees. If someone needs to take advantage of pay/sick leave or employer health insurance, you will work with that employee to make sure they are able to care for themselves and their loved ones. It’s helpful to have good attention to detail to succeed at this logistical work. In addition, if you like the idea of working in HR, but are more introverted, this can be a great place to land.


TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

This part of HR work combines administrative and employee-facing work. Within HR you will play a role in onboarding new employees, which includes introductory training and managing onboarding paperwork. You might also manage training sessions for current employees. Entry-level tasks in this work might be creating a calendar of trainings, putting together a slide deck for a presentation, and running the sessions. This is a space where you can prove your skills behind the scenes and then start to shape the overall training and talent strategy of an organization.


DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION

This work is taking an equity eye to all of the practices highlighted above and developing new spaces to increase inclusion in the workplace. This can include building out new recruiting partnerships, critically examining pay/promotion equity, or looking at the norms and culture instilled at the organization. DEI work can range widely between tactical and administrative tasks and much broader strategic approaches. Across it all, strong emotional intelligence and the ability to handle a diverse set of stakeholders (high-level executives, entry-level employees, etc. across all functions) are critical to making progress in the workplace.

HR specific role distinctions

GENERALIST/SPECIALIST

An important distinction in HR jobs is between generalist roles and specialist roles. As the title alludes, a generalist is responsible for some combination of the tasks mentioned above (Recruiting/Talent, Payroll and Benefits, Training and Development); whereas a specialist will only be responsible for one. For example, if you’re really passionate about talent acquisition, you’ll have the opportunity to pursue further training or degrees in this specialization. Depending on the size of your organization, opportunities to specialize may be available at the entry level, but most smaller non-profits will have a generalist HR assistant or coordinator starting out. If you’re interested in eventually specializing, you may have to move between organizations if your current place of work is too small. As you move up the HR ladder to the senior levels, you’ll oversee everything, so if you have those ambitions, it’s helpful to understand each piece of HR work.


DUAL ROLES

In addition to the HR assistant/coordinator role, you might find an HR job posting where the duties mentioned above are combined with those of the finance or operations staff. This would likely happen at a smaller organization where there isn’t enough work or money to justify individual entry-level staff in each department. Starting out, these dual roles will give you an opportunity to try out each of these back-end roles before deciding on a path to pursue. However, if you take a dual role starting out, it’s important to define your tasks and make sure you’re not taking a job that should really be filled by two people when you accept a role.


INTERSECTION OF DEI AND HR

At some organizations, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) work is located within the HR department. At others, a distinct DEI team or committee is outside of HR. In a perfect world, DEI would be deeply ingrained in each role across HR (and the organization). But in practice, many organizations still think about this work in a siloed way. Check out our upcoming guide on having a career in DEI for more information!

HR by the numbers (pay and hours)

Working in human resources will have busy times and less busy times, but the work generally revolves around a typical 9-5 work week. There are some temporary HR assistant roles which pay on an hourly basis, but most other HR roles are salaried and include full benefits. The range of entry-level HR roles will likely fall between 40K and 60K annually, depending on the size of your organization. There is plenty of room for growth here and it is pretty feasible to make six figures after additional time in the field.

How to get a job in human resources

What to demonstrate in your application

Depending on the tasks, a few key skills can help set you apart in the application process and get your first job in HR.

COMMUNICATIONS/INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

Since much of HR is about working with and supporting people, it is helpful to have the ability to communicate effectively. This is especially true if you are part of the hiring team, where you’ll be the face of the organization for new employees and will need to present as positive and excited about the work. Having empathy and active listening skills for employees of all levels is critical. You can highlight past experiences of working in teams with other people to emphasize your communications skills. For example, highlight if you were in club leadership in college and helped manage an interview and selection process.


CONFIDENTIALITY

HR work sometimes includes having difficult conversations with employees concerning conflicts within the workplace and personal difficulties outside the workplace. During the application process, the hiring manager may test to see how you would handle one of these difficult situations, and you’ll need to show that you understand the importance of confidentiality.


ATTENTION TO DETAIL

Many introductory-level tasks in HR  require attention to detail since messing up any details around payroll, promotions, or policies can cause significant headaches. You should highlight any prior experience working with spreadsheets or numbers, especially in an office setting. Though it’s helpful to have worked specifically in any HR-like roles before, a previous job working a front desk, doing administrative work for a school club, or in a campus office can be enough to get your foot in the door.


NETWORKING

If you’re coming in with a specific interest in HR, lots of current professionals will be happy to talk to you about their work, and you will definitely stand out as a potential candidate (since many other folks haven’t read this career guide and understand the nuances of how HR works). Try finding an organization with a mission you’re passionate about, and schedule an informational interview with someone in the HR department. You might even hear about non-HR opportunities and have built a connection with someone running the application process.


CERTIFICATION

Depending on how large the organization you end up at, your employer might ask you to get an SHRM certification or other certifications. Sometimes, these certifications can be helpful to advance in your career or get hired somewhere, but it generally isn’t required for most entry-level roles in the social sector. Check out their website to learn more!

Exit opportunities

After your first couple of years in the field, one option is to continue up the HR ladder. If that’s the case, you’ll likely have to decide whether or not to specialize in a sub-field or continue on a generalist path if you chose. If you really enjoy the recruitment work, you could pursue a career as an independent recruiter. Otherwise, HR professionals can advance to a director-level at their current organization or by moving elsewhere. Though some professionals get a masters degree in their HR specialty, an advanced degree is not usually required to get promoted. Since HR introduces you to each aspect of the organization and is closely tied to the mission, an HR director can also become a competitive candidate for a nonprofit executive role like the Chief Operations Officer (COO) job if they proactively work to coordinate with other teams and have a skillset in finance.

If you’re interested in transitioning to more programmatic/policy roles or other back-end nonprofit roles, HR can be a good way to get your foot in the door at an organization. If this is your ultimate goal, you’ll have to advocate for yourself so you don’t get pigeonholed into HR. Make sure to connect with people on other teams and make your interest known. After some time in HR, you may also be interested in transitioning to DEI work, where you can leverage your HR experience to get a position.

Next three steps

  1. Think about which HR specialties fit with your skill-based strengths and previous work experience.

  2. Schedule three informational interviews with HR managers at an organization that aligns with your personal mission.

  3. Write an HR specific cover letter that emphasizes your attention to detail, interpersonal skills, and ability to deal with sensitive information.

Last updated: July 2021

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