Episode Transcript
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Andrew Quilpa (00:02):
Had you actually
read the email, you would know
that the podcast you are aboutto listen to could contain
explicit language and offensivecontent.
These HR experts' views are notrepresentative of their past,
present or future employers.
If you have ever heard mymanager is unfair to me.
I need you to reset my HRportal password, or Can I write
(00:24):
up my employee for crying toomuch?
Welcome to our little safe zone.
Welcome to Jaded HR.
Warren (00:44):
Welcome to Jaded HR, the
podcast by one lonely HR
professional who wants to helpyou get through workday by
saying all the things you'rethinking, but say them out loud.
I'm Warren and, yes, I'm flyingsolo today.
This will be a shorty, so youwon't have to put up with me for
(01:05):
all that long.
Got one little rant, I guessI'd say for you today.
Why am I by myself?
Because I'm a moron and forgotto schedule something for this
date.
I thought I had them allcovered, not so much.
But this episode is brought toyou by our Patreon supporters.
We have Hallie, the originalJaded HR Rockstar, we have Bill
(01:27):
and we have Michael.
So thank you to all of them fortheir support.
You can follow the links in theshow notes to support us on
Patreon.
If you want to do a reoccurringsupport or if you just want
one-time support of us, you canjust go to buy us a beer and
send a one-time donation to us,so that'll help out very, very
(01:52):
much.
So I want to thank you fordoing that.
But also last episode I didmention the new texting feature
through Buzzsprout that you cansend to, so I did activate that.
You will see the text, the showlink, in the show notes, right
up at the top of all theepisodes.
So even if you're listening tosomething from four years ago,
it'll now be there.
You click on the link, it'llshow up a series of six numbers
or something like that that saysdo not erase, because that's
(02:13):
how it distinguishes who thetext is going to, and you can
send us a message Now.
I did test this and the onlydownside to this is it's one-way
communication.
I cannot text you back.
The information I will get isyour location, and it's kind of
sort of close but not really so.
(02:33):
For example, when I tested it,it gave my location as a town,
20 miles away from me, and thenthe last four digits of my phone
number.
So I'd be able to say whoeverfrom Boston, massachusetts, and
the last four of your phonenumber are this I'd be able to
do that unless you identifyyourself and let me know.
But I'm looking forward togetting some text messages from
(02:55):
you all to connect with us.
We love hearing feedback fromour listeners.
Hell, that's actually how I gotin touch with Cece for the
first time.
She sent me a DM and we startedchatting and, like I said, she
was a guest a couple times first, and then we brought her on
regularly, so hey, so, anyways,one more piece of housekeeping
(03:16):
before I get on to my littlerant.
For today, there will be noepisode two weeks from now, and
that has been intentional.
We're not going to record onweeks of holidays.
We usually record on Mondays,and just with a holiday thrown
in the mix with a holiday fallson a recording day, we're just
going to skip it, and becausewe've already recorded two for
(03:38):
May, hey, we'll let that go.
So join us again after fourweeks for our next episode and I
will have a guest host.
So, anyways, that's all thethings I wanted to get started
with today, all the littlebehind-the-scenes stuff to share
with you.
Let's see here.
So what do I want to talk abouttoday?
This is a question and maybewell, yeah, I'm going to be
(04:02):
jaded about this this is aquestion I hear the most,
whether it's online or I've beenasked personally and it's about
education and being in humanresources.
It's not necessary.
Period, end of story.
There's okay episode's over.
No, I'm not going to let youoff that easy.
(04:22):
But, yeah, education is notnecessary to have a great career
in HR.
You can have a degree insomething other than human
resources.
I know people have, say,criminal justice degrees or
communications or all sorts ofdifferent things, accounting.
I know people with all sorts ofbackgrounds and degrees that
(04:44):
aren't really into that wouldn'tdirectly relate to human
resources, and they do just fine.
Just as much as I know peoplewith no higher education.
They maybe have their highschool diploma and that's it.
And you know what?
They're damn good HR people too.
So if somebody were to saypeople too.
(05:09):
So if somebody were to say,must I have a degree to enter HR
?
No, the road might be a littletougher for you at first, but
once you get your experience in,hey, that's all that matters.
So is it mandatory?
No, does it help?
Yeah, it helps.
But let me tell you, I graduatedfrom college in the mid-90s and
so much has changed in HR.
I did major in business,concentrating in HR, and so much
has changed from what I learnedin college.
(05:30):
I mean some things that we weretalking about.
When we were talking about, forexample, I remember very
specifically in an HR classdiscussing harassment, and back
then there could be no same-sexharassment.
It had to be basically backthen then it had to be a male
against a female.
Now we know it can be same-sex,it can be woman-on-male
(05:53):
harassment.
It happens, even though most ofthe time the guys are the
douchebags who do that stuff.
So, anyways, things havechanged.
(06:14):
You need to stay on top of yourgame, and education is just one
piece of the puzzle.
But do you need it?
Absolutely no.
I've learned and been able toapply to my career.
Especially the last 10, 15years has been more about what
my experience is than what I'velearned through the course of a
formal education.
So now, and that's only forbachelor's degrees.
(06:35):
So let's move to master'sdegrees.
Are they necessary?
Absolutely not necessary.
I don't have a graduate degree.
Feathers does have a graduatedegree and that's how he got
into HR from another career.
But do you need a graduatedegree?
No, don't need that either.
It helps once again, but itonly helps so much.
(07:00):
I actually will be attendinggrad school for the first time
this fall and I'm not going toget my degree in HR.
I'm getting a general MBA.
I think that will be morevaluable to me in the remainder
of my career than any more HR,not to say that I know it all,
but I don't think I'm going toreally learn anything that new
(07:22):
or life-shattering careerchanging for me in that.
Now, granted, for my electives,yes, I'm going to take HR
classes for my elective coursesbecause I think that'll be
really easy for me and I willget something out of it, I'm
sure.
But I wanted to test my theoryas well, to see am I going to
get anything out of this?
(07:42):
I probably will.
I mean, even the lameness ofwebinars or what have you I do
get something out of.
Am I going to get enough tojustify the tuition?
Probably not for that, andthat's one of the reasons I
would not, for myself, get agraduate degree in HR.
Now, if you are, say, likeFeathers was and your
undergraduate is in somethingother than human resources and
(08:04):
you want to enter the field,that's a great way to do it.
That gets you in the door.
But education as a whole,unless you're doing something
that's highly technical and Idon't mean just technical in
terms of like engineering, where, yeah, you need to have that
degree in order to doengineering or accounting, yeah,
you need to have that degree inorder to do engineering or
accounting.
Yeah, you need to have thataccounting degree to be a CPA
(08:26):
those type of technicalpositions, absolutely.
Hr isn't that?
And I really get turned off bypeople who flaunt their
education as why they'resuperior to other HR people, and
just go on Facebook and you'llsee plenty of that in those HR
user groups of I got my master'sdegree and this, I have several
(08:48):
master's degree, od and whoknows whatever else people have
their graduate degrees in.
But if that's the way thatmakes you feel justified, knock
yourself out and makes you feellike a better human being, bless
you.
That's all I really got to sayabout that.
But on top of that, I reallythink people need to be careful
(09:08):
when getting a degree in humanresources, and there are a lot
of colleges out there of varyingdegrees and quality that are
offering human resources degreesand a lot of those human
resource degrees are not worththe paper they're printed on.
I've talked to people who'veattended some of these schools
(09:29):
and I'll go ahead and pick onUniversity of Phoenix, because
they are probably the most suedcollege in the history of
colleges and they put out theyhave a HR degree program.
Is that going to help you get adegree?
No-transcript.
(09:58):
Are you going to get somethingout of it?
Sure, you're going to getsomething out of it.
Is it going to help you get ajob.
Sure, it's going to help youget a job, but it's not going to
do anything.
So if you're interested ingetting into HR, I would just
research my schools very wellthat you're interested in
there's a lot of online ones,both good and bad and do deep
digging.
(10:19):
Don't just say, oh, this one'sgood and the tuition's cheap and
whatever their little plan is,because it's a slippery slope
with some of these schools.
And am I saying I wouldn't hiresomeone if they got their HR
degree from?
Once again, I'll pick onUniversity of Phoenix.
No, I'm not saying I wouldn't,but if I have better choices out
(10:41):
, know, it's not going to bethat much of a plus to you.
And even if you have your HRdegree from some Ivy League
school, is that going to helpyou much more?
No, I'm really going to belooking for experience and
things like that.
So, yeah, education is such aslippery slope in HR and I've
(11:01):
seen people who have been verysuccessful with education and
getting an HR.
I've seen people who have not.
And I just want to put that outthere because you know, like I
said, I'm going to be attendinggrad school this upcoming fall
and I'm really looking forwardto it.
I just like learning overall, Ilike doing things and I think
(11:21):
this will be a fun adventure forme.
And, like I said, I'll takesome HR classes and see how that
goes and I'll definitely informyou all on how the progress
goes.
Now I'm going to be taking theslow road.
I'm going to be taking only oneor two classes a semester.
I'm not going to ever do afull-time load.
What they call three classeswould be a full-time load in
grad school.
(11:42):
I'm not going to.
I don't see myself ever doingthat and I don't see myself
really taking classes over thesummer because I want to be able
to have some time myself.
This is something I'm doing formy own personal gratification
Plus, honestly, one of mylong-term goals when I get
towards those wonderfulretirement years and if you saw
me and all the lack of hair onmy head and the gray in my beard
(12:03):
, you would think it's not thatfar around the corner from me.
I'd like to retire tomorrow if Icould, but that's not in the
cards.
But I do think one of my goalsfor when I do retire is maybe to
teach adjunct on the side, toteach HR actually on the side.
(12:24):
I think that would be a littlefun for me and something I'd
like to do, but definitely dosome research on your schools.
Don't just go by what's ontheir website.
Find out about their programs alittle bit more.
Find out how many times they'vebeen sued for bad admittance
practices or other things likethat, because you would be
(12:47):
shocked to see and I don't thinka lot of people are going to
necessarily dismiss peoplecoming from one of these schools
outright I would hope not,because HR is one of those
positions that you will learnsomething.
If you have no HR experiencecoming in, you will learn
something, I would hope, out ofit and you will be better for it
(13:10):
.
Is the amount of improvementyou're going to see in your
career, your life, equivalent tothe tuition you pay?
That's where you've got todecide for yourself.
So that's one of the questionsI get asked the most about
working in HR is about education.
Do I need my degree in HR?
No, you just need theexperience.
How do you get the experience?
(13:31):
Well, sometimes the educationhelps, but you know we've talked
about so many people who dumbluck their way into HR for
better or worse, and actuallythat's one of the topics of
future episode I'm working onright now, but you have, oh,
jamie was a great administrativeassistant, so she will be
perfect for our HR role and thatworks.
(13:53):
And some people really takeflight with that and sometimes
it doesn't work because Jamiedoesn't have the first clue what
HR really does, and companiesthat hire people to fill the
positions, like that also don'thave the first clue of what HR
really does.
And companies that hire peopleto fill the positions, like that
, also don't have the first clueof what HR really does.
So anyways, like I said, Iwanted to keep this at a shorty
episode.
I think we're going a littlelong for that.
(14:14):
So we will not be dropping anepisode on May 30th, but we will
be dropping an episode on June13th with a special guest host.
So be on the lookout for that.
In the meantime, once again,I'd love to hear feedback from
you.
All the feedback links are inthe link tree, link in our show
notes, but the quickest, easiestway to do it is just click send
(14:36):
a text and send us a text.
Love to hear your feedback fromthere and I'll read them on
there.
Unless you tell me don't readon there, then I won't read on
there, but I want to hear somefeedback from you.
I think this is a great tool todo that, and if you want me to
reply, put your number in thebody of the text and I'll reply
from the Jaded HR phone number.
So, anyways, thank you verymuch for listening, as always.
(14:56):
I want to thank the UnderscoreOrchestra for use of the theme
song Devil to Devil, and thevoice artist doing the intro is
Andrew Culpa.
Oh, and our best practice ofthe day is education.
Nah, and from there I will justsign off.
(15:16):
I'm Warren and we're herehelping you survive.
Hr1.
What the fuck moment at a time.