ATTENTION: Young Pakistani HR Professionals

Thinking of opting for Human Resources Management as a career? Great, but before making this career decision, you need a crash course in the real HR practices prevailing in our local business scenario. All those case studies in your books will now have to take a back seat.

Here's what you need to do to start off as an HR professional:
Intern for at least a month in a two or more different organizations and industries. The more DIVERSE organizations, the better exposure you get. Try observing all the HR functions within these organization to figure out what interests you the most. Get hold of any relevant project/assignment that you can get your hands upon.

Interact with HR people from all levels (from junior management to department heads) and ASK all the questions that come to your mind regarding working in the HR arena, especially their personal experiences.

After getting a little taste of HRM, decide whether you can spend the major remaining portion of your life doing this.

Once you join the league, keep your eyes on the challenges that may come your way from day one. The challenges range from ethical dilemmas, balancing the employer's and employees' interests to MANAGING our own emotional labor. Keep in mind that any entry level position in HR here in Pakistan can pose you with repetitive, clerical/data-entry sort of work. BE PATIENT as this phase will pass out eventually and you will get to do a lot of analysis and decision-making tasks as you gain expertise and exposure.

Acquiring the RIGHT skills and keeping them up-to-date is vital in these times. Your key characteristics & skill-set to be a successful HR professional should include an excellent customer service attitude, a high emotional quotient (EQ), clear ethical values, ability to learn, UNLEARN and re-learn, analytical skills and most importantly a tech-savvy mindset so that you can implement the latest technologies to AUTOMATE HR processes. Always be on the lookout for the latest industry developments that can help your department achieve higher standards.

Welcome to the club!

About the Author: Moqaddas Abbas, an Islamabad based HR Generalist was working in a middle management position in the country's largest R&D organization at the time of first publication of this article in the 11th TimeTrax HR Professionals NewsBeat in December 2011. He has been educated at renowned institutes in three different countries.