Who Are the 5.6 Million Who Work in HR Recruiting - Workology

Who Are the 5.6 Million Who Work in HR Recruiting - Workology Whats It Like to Work in HR I work in the business of human resources and recruiting. Its a complicated and niche industry that on the surface looks pretty simple until its not so simple any more. Ever tried to talk to someone outside of the industry about an Affirmative Action Plan or fines related to I-9s? Most dont understand the why, how and what of what HR actually does. According to our friends over at LinkedIn, there are in nearly 2,000,000 LinkedIn profiles of active professionals who list their jobs and responsibilities as working in HR. This is slightly different from the Bureau of Labor statistics report from 2010 that there are 5.6 million professionals in the United States who work in HR. Yes, you read correctly, the government says that there are 5.6 million people who work in HR. Question is who are these 5.6 million professionals working in the industry as HR is many things including recruiting, training, employment law, safety compensation, benefits and an HR generalist who does a little bit of everything. One of the challenges with Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers and for marketers and sales professionals who are selling into the space is that human resources is specific and targeted, and yet others who dont understand lump us into other categories. This is the exact same challenge I have when trying to explain to someone what I do as an HR professional. My work is many different specific yet complicated things that make it hard for outsiders to understand and extremely challenging for HR technologies, vendors and service providers to properly sell to practitioner in our space. Many vendors treat HR like a sales funnel focusing on generating as many leads as possible, cold calling them and enticing them with free conference swag they are giving away. Please for the sake of all that is right in this world, vendors, please qualify your leads. Whats It Like to Work in HR Recruiters arent always HR professionals and headhunters while they sometimes work with HR and corporate recruiters are completely different than HR Payroll may or may not be the responsibility of HR A Director of HR might not actually have any direct reports while an HR Manager might be the decision maker for buying products and services at a different ccompany VPs of HR and Recruiting are often separate job titles with very different and not often overlapping responsibilities Employees often have a corporate job title and a vanity title working for large enterprise companies. I once was HR Generalist IV but my vanity title was Senior HR Generalist HR Practitioners are More than a Sale Confused yet? According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook available by clicking here there are the following number of HR professionals as of 2010 in the United States. Keep in mind that the US government says that there are potentially 5.6 million professionals who work in an HR capacity while SHRM, the Society of Human Resource Management and HR professional association has 250,000+ professional members. ASTD, the American Society of Training and Development has 39,000 global members. Sounds like these professional associations have a lot of membership opportunity. Human Resource Managers 71,800. (This includes job titles like recruiting manager, staffing manager, HR director, labor relations and personnel.) *Note, there was no mention of Director of People or Chief People Officer. Human Resource Speciaists 718,800. (This includes job titles like recruiting specialist, corporate recruiter, headhunters, job placement specialists, union representatives and training.) HR Analysts and Consultants like me 1,395,000. (This number is not at all accurate as the DOL lumped this group in with what they refer to as management and analysts.) Training and Development Managers 29,800. (This includes skills training managers whatever that means.) Compensation and Benefits Managers 31,800. (This includes wage and salary admins.) Occupational Health and Safety Specialists 58,700. (Sometimes HR is responsible for Safety, OSHA and Workers Compensation. Other times, not so much.) Payroll Auditors 1,216,000. (This job title is lumped into what the DOL refers to as accountants and auditors. The number is misleading but often accounts payable is responsible for processing payroll checks while sometimes its the HR specialist.) Employment HR Clerks 1,605,300. (This isnt exactly accurate either as HR and Employment Clerks are lumped into the category of information clerks including airline clerks and fan mail editors. Because ensuring that flights are boarded and fan mail answered is exactly that same as scheduling candidate interviews or pulling HR reports?)