Trying to advance my career

Hey everyone,

I am looking for some advice. I graduated college with my bachelors in communication. During college, I worked as a supervisor for duty free Americas (retail store.) I also interned and was offered a temporary full time job at a non profit organization. I enjoyed the event planning portion, but calling people and asking for donations wasn't my thing. I am a pretty shy person. However, working with the community and planning events and handling the promotion piece was something I enjoyed. Fast forward to now, I took a job as an administrative assistant handling mostly HR stuff, along with some community outreach work for a power plant. I was young and needed this job mainly for the money to pay off my student loans. Now I feel somewhat stuck. I lack the experience needed to branch off into what I originally went to school for, and I feel like people won't hire me. I didn't pay a ton of money to be an assistant (no offense to those who are admin assistants, I give them much credit! I just want something more) and I am honestly very bored in this role. I need something more challenging and I would like to work for a company that offers upward mobility because right now I just feel somewhat stuck. Maybe there are others in the same profession that can guide me in a direction to go in. Thanks for the help!

Maybe its time to reach out to the company you interned for and see if there are any openings. Some nonprofits have positions for event coordinators where you don't have to cold call for donations - but you do build relationships. You might have to work over some of your shyness, though. Maybe there are similar companies. Just polish up your resume and pass it around. btw, how long have you been at your job? Maybe you can see if there is a position open in community outreach? or after you are there a year, if there are community outreach jobs at other companies. Its hard to outreach, though, if you don't find it easy to talk to people. I will say ground level nonprof involves a lot of paper pushing though, too

Maybe its time to reach out to the company you interned for and see if there are any openings. Some nonprofits have positions for event coordinators where you don't have to cold call for donations - but you do build relationships. You might have to work over some of your shyness, though. Maybe there are similar companies. Just polish up your resume and pass it around. btw, how long have you been at your job? Maybe you can see if there is a position open in community outreach? or after you are there a year, if there are community outreach jobs at other companies. Its hard to outreach, though, if you don't find it easy to talk to people. I will say ground level nonprof involves a lot of paper pushing though, too

I've been here for 5 years. I AM the community outreach coordinator and at a local level, there's no room for me to move up. I am also in a sticky spot because most non profits don't pay too well, and I'm married, have a house, and really can't take a pay cut. I did recently enroll in an HR certificate program and I'm hoping maybe I can move into a higher position in the HR field. It's just hard because I feel like people look at my degree and don't assume I'm an HR professional, I guess. I didn't go into the field I had intended, that's for sure!

I am not the most knowledgeable about this stuff, but it seems like a degree in communication would be relevant to HR. What is the typical degree for a HR person anyway?

It's because of situations like this that I always say to graduates to ensure their first role actually works towards their career even if it means doing a part time or voluntary job in their desired sector at the start. And also why I say buying a house when in a career you hate is a bad idea.

Work on getting your story straight. It's simple - studied in pr/promotional stuff and interned in the area. Then took the first job going to pay off student loans, which was in HR, now you're pegged into a HR career.

You wrote an essay instead - others have been confused as you put too much specifics into your posting and employers will be too if you meander into details like that.

The best way to tackle this is 2 CVs

- One for HR roles, playing up the HR experience with the education in one line and possibly omitting the internship.

- Another for PR/promotional work that plays up PR related stuff, with the internship and education and where your current work is in shorter form with any HARD skills that are used in PR highlighted (NOT SOFT SKILLS).

Don't do certification unless multiple industry insiders say wholeheartedly it will help. I sometimes see people trying to break into my industry through silly financial modelling courses that scratch the surface, don't cut the mustard and cost $000s. HR isn't going to be much different - get the jobs and experience instead and suck it up if it takes time and effort to get into a new role.

Also have you been applying for HR roles or simply thinking firms rule you out? The reality is that firms don't look at much more than your current role and experience level at said role. The only thing to look out for when trying for new HR roles is describing the chronological description of your CV history. This will be designed to weed out those that are experienced in HR but not really HR at heart/drifted into it. If you prepare a simple confident explanation of why you went into a role unrelated to your degree it won't be an issue.

If you want to transition into PR instead, what would open things up a lot if you would be to consider selling the house. Plenty of people do that these days when transitioning and move in with relatives with their spouse and kids in tow.

It's up to you but remember the more you do HR stuff, the harder it gets to transition into PR stuff you did before. Ask all the hard questions. Is it just boredom in your role or will you eventually get chewed out? Are you flexible on money and ok with selling your house and moving? Does the thought of explaining your plans to friends and family or spouse make you feel like you'll get take a barrel-load of uninformed crap from them? etc etc Be prepared for some friends to be overbearing narcissistic arseholes that don't listen and have you repeating yourself a lot. A classic is where they conveniently forget details that are easy to remember so they can act out the same bull advice over and over. Decide which hardships you are ok with, which you will not accept. If you cannot accept moving house and selling then try a route that doesn't inolve a pay cut. Just be aware that getting into a PR role may not be possible without a pay cut.

On this forum you will just get generic advice. Other than that, try find specialist forums for PR careers. I use 2 for my own industry and where professionals in the industry only answer - find a PR equivalent to this if you want actual industry expertise with a little more detail on local markets. Don't forget the basics of preparing mentally, but don't forget to know your market aswell.

Thank you everyone for your comments. I definitely feel better about the situation now. I can't promise I'll go, but this definitely helped push me in the right direction. Thank you! I also found some thing helpful about big lots careers