-: I was a Liberal Arts student.
I majored in Foreign Languages, Linguistics and Translation.
But the thing that I often tell people is that
you need to acquire transferrable skills.
And university is a great place to hone them.
So yes, I was a foreign language major,
but I also in addition to learning new languages
and studying abroad which is also something I
would wholeheartedly recommend to a student of any major.
The world is a global place.
Majors that teach you critical thinking,
that give you analytical capability,
strong interpersonal skills, the ability to write
and communicate effectively are really the grounding
for most jobs
in corporate America.
So I think if you bring to the table core competencies
and a feel for a point of view
around that which you're good in,
that which interests you,
you can pretty much learn the nuts
and bolts of a whole host of things that are out there.
In Human Resources very often, people end up coming
into the organization through a more of an indirect path.
Either through a management development program
and so having the blend of skills that I just described
would be important because there are parts of Human
Resources that are very technical
and very quantitatively oriented.
Executive compensation, benefits, data analytics,
HR technology and then there are the HR generalists roles
that have consulting,
they have
development,
coaching, teaching kinds of components to them.
I would say that for an individual coming in it almost
doesn't matter what vertical you enter a company at.
If you come in as an experienced individual,
you're gonna lead from a position of strength.
If you were a learning and development professional
that's what you would lead with.
But if you bring a blend of basic skills,
the management development programs in Human Resources
usually start with one of the more technical verticals
and then you can branch out into other areas.