What Are the Different Types of Human Resource Management Careers?

Most corporations, including for-profit and nonprofit organizations, have a need for a human resources department. Professionals in this group support top management with key initiatives tied to hiring and terminating employees in addition to compensation issues. Human resource management careers can be extremely specialized or more general. Professionals can pursue human resource management careers at either large corporations or small firms, and the greater the level of education and training, the more fulfilling a career is likely to be. There are different levels of human resource management, and advancement is typically tied to work experience.

Growth in a human resource career is possible within one corporation. As long as the appropriate networking takes place within a company from the time an employee joins the firm, even as a human resource intern, there is growth potential up to the management level. Of course, an employee can also use an experience at a smaller company, taking any internal growth opportunities along the way, to pursue a human resource management position at a larger, global firm.

Rewards in human resource management careers might be more pronounced based on the level of education and certification achieved by the professional. Earning a postgraduate degree in addition to receiving some type of formal industry certification will help. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, a master's degree in science or business with some emphasis on human resources will lay the necessary foundation for success in human resource management careers.

The Human Resource Certification Institute is an organization that is acknowledged on an international scale. Upon taking and passing a written examination, professionals become more competitive when seeking human resource management careers. One of the earliest recognitions that can be earned in this field is a professional human resource certification. The individual who pursues this recognition still reports to a supervisor and has achieved several years of a working history in this field.

A more advanced certification is a senior professional in human resources. The individual who earns this level of training has achieved up to eight years of industry experience and is probably responsible for an entire human resources division within a corporation. In this role, the human resources professional should demonstrate an ability to generate ideas that make the department and corporation run more efficiently. A global human resource certification demands a more international role than the other levels of training, as the name suggests.