A Philosophical Job Search

Hello, Evil HR Lady. I've got a question that may be a bit personal, but hopefully it's still general enough to be useful to you.

I'm a philosophy major. (Go on, laugh, get it out of your system.) Looking at postgraduate career paths, HR is a remarkably appealing option, but I'm worried about whether my BA would be taken seriously when I'm looking for jobs. Am I fussing too much, or could this be a real handicap after graduation?

A local college offers a postgraduate program that preps students to write the CHRP exams. Certainly, the CHRP designation would help, but a fancy designation on a lame-duck degree isn't much help at all. Would such a program help make up for shortcomings in my undergraduate degree, as far as employers are concerned, or would this just be a waste of a year and tuition?

Thanks for your time, in any event!

An Undergraduate

Ahh, you are one of the many who made a choice of a major without much thought to how you would get a job. I would laugh at you, but I majored in political science and my emphasis was political philosophy. My senior thesis was on Nietzsche, so you can tell how employable I was after graduation. (I, of course, sold truck bumpers and then went to graduate school to gain a master's degree in political science, making me extra un-employable. Should I send you some applications for grad school instead?)

Ahh, but to get a job in HR. Do you have any computer or analysis skills? Well, of course you have the latter--that's what you've been doing all these years. Are you willing to start at the bottom? Of course you are.

An HR analyst job might be attainable for someone in your shoes. It doesn't require a great deal of actual HR knowledge at the entry level. Staffing is also a good place to start.

Before you go out and spend money on a course, which may or may not help you, attempt to get an HR internship. We love people who will work for us for little or no money. (One year, I asked my boss for an intern for Christmas, and I actually got one! It was fabulous.) If that doesn't work, go to a temp agency and say you'll do ANYTHING as long as it is in an HR department. Either one of these solutions will teach you the basics of the HR language so you can sound like you know what you are talking about, even when you don't.

Keep in mind that you are not the first philosophy grad to go, "Oops, I have no marketable skills!" What you need to do is figure out what you can do, and network, network and did I mention, network, to get yourself into an entry level job. If that all fails, then sure, try the course option. But, I bet you'll land yourself a job without it. Get the certification later.