Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to another
Career Chat, Bite Size
Inspiration on the TransparentHR Podcast.
It's your host, Prince Tate,and I am excited and thrilled
for the guest that we have fortoday.
Her name is Lashanique Plummer.
She's also the host of the HRPivot podcast.
(00:31):
Lashanique, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hi, thank you so much
for having me.
Can't wait to get into thisconversation today.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yes, yes.
So for our career chat today, Iwant you to share with our
listeners a little bit aboutwhat you do, and even what your
podcast is about, but I alsowant us to dive into the big
question that a lot of peopleask me today, and that is how do
(01:00):
people break into HR, or how dothey pivot into HR, if they're
already started their career?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, yeah, I can't
wait to jump into that question,
because it's such a commonquestion, right and, and one
that gets people spinning forsome time, right, so I'm excited
.
So so a little bit about me andmy career.
Excited so.
So a little bit about me and mycareer.
So I started as a businessperson, right, a business degree
(01:31):
and then took my career tosourcing, and I had no idea what
sourcing was.
uh, let me tell you I don't.
I just took the first thingright out of uh school, um, and
quickly knew that wasn't for me.
I learned a lot, though, aboutworking globally and all the
different things andcross-functional skills, so I
took all those transferableskills and I stayed with.
The company I worked with atthe time was Target, and decided
(01:52):
to go into store retailleadership, did that, loved that
too, and then I fell in lovewith engagement and motivation
and like all the things peopleget excited about when it comes
to HR development and developingpeople and even performance
management and all the things,and so when I pivoted my career,
(02:14):
I was able to do it in 90 days,which was amazing, and I didn't
realize at the time how uniquethat was, which is kind of a
prelude to why I decided to helppeople do that.
But then I grew my career veryquickly, starting out as an HR
generalist, so I did not startas, like, a coordinator or
somebody that's very entry level, which is like what a lot of
(02:37):
people assume.
I was able to start with a 70ksalary even though I didn't have
correct experience.
The, the job description saidyou need five years of
experience.
I didn't have five yearsexperience, um, and then I just
like, because the, the company,the industry, um, my manager,
(02:59):
like everything aligned, I wasable to grow to a global HR
business partner, and so thatwas my most recent role.
I did everything in the middle,everything in between, hris, I
did talent management.
I even stepped in as HR interimdirector for some time.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I was like y'all want
me to do what?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So I did that, which
you know zero out of 10
recommend and 10 out of 10recommend, because you learn a
lot when you step in as aninterim person.
But also you know, there's a lotto do when you're, when you're
stepping up, and at that point Ionly had two and a half years
of HR experience.
So my role now to answer yourquestion my role most recently
that I, that I was in Global HRBusiness Partner, that I was in
(03:43):
Global HR Business Partner, itjust means that I partnered with
executive leaders to make surethe business is running smoothly
right, and that means I touch alot of different things, which
is how do people onboard, how dopeople get hired, how do people
be successful in their roles orchange Anything in between?
(04:04):
You know, we're a little morethan just benefits.
I know a lot of people are likeyou know, hr does benefits and
do any of you know, of course,any of the exits or anything in
between there.
And so what I love about HRbusiness partner is you get to
problem solve, okay, you get toprobably get to solve all the
business problems and then alsomake sure that the people are
(04:24):
taken care of while you'resolving those business problems,
and so there's nothing moresatisfying than that for me is
to be able to say I got abusiness issue, but also I got
to make sure I'm thinking aboutthe people during this business
change, right, it can be.
It can be so many differentthings.
It could be from changing theperformance objectives for the
year all the way.
We need to.
(04:45):
We need to rethink our wholebusiness and the innovation of
our business to keep up with ourcustomers, to keep up with
whoever right, and so, so, yeah,so that's what I would say a
little bit about me and aboutwhat I do.
So, yeah, I would love toanswer the question too, but let
me know I'll pause there first.
Let me know if there's anythingelse.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So how did you make
that transition?
And again, you talked aboutless than 90 days getting into
an HR generalist role, where you, per se, did not qualify for
the role, didn't have theexperience, and guess what?
I'm going to tell you this Ihave somewhat the same
experience.
So I started my career journeyas an intern in 2018 and made my
(05:31):
way just, you know, justworking, doing everything that
that organization wanted me todo in a generalist space, and I
was still in college and I endedup getting a full-time position
in an HR generalist role, andso you know, we have a lot in
common there in how we startedour career journey.
(05:53):
But how did you do that?
With no I won't say noexperience, but with minimal
experience?
Can you talk a little bit abouttransferable skills?
So tell us, and for that personthat is already working, what
advice would you give them tosay, hey, this is how you can
(06:14):
get into HR?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I love this question somuch.
So, yeah, I'll boil it down tomake it simple.
I do think, overall, Irecommend if you're interested
in HR this is the first thing Ijust want to say If you're
interested in HR and a lot ofpeople they're just there's
something that tugs at theirheart, tugs at their soul to be
in HR because they want to helppeople.
(06:37):
I just, first and foremost, isone like make the decision, know
that you can make it happen.
Right.
Like come from that energy,like I can make it happen and
I'm committed to it, even if itfor me specifically, and maybe
it might not take 90 days, butI'm gonna make it happen.
Right.
So that's first and foremost.
And I that was part, like if Ihad to start with, like what was
(06:57):
probably the biggest thing forme was mindset in terms of I'm
this is what I want to do andI'm gonna make it happen.
Because when I did come upagainst people who told me that
I couldn't make it happen, itmight also be the.
Detroit in me because I was like, watch me work okay.
So I you know, it's a littlebit of the Detroit grit where
it's like, okay, I can, I canmake it happen.
(07:19):
I'm not going to, I don't haveto take a 50, like 50K, which
would be a significant pay cut.
I don't have to do these things.
I'm going to see how I can makeit work.
So that would be the firstthing I'd say.
The second thing I would say isthat also believing and I'm
going to, we'll work through itwith the impact model, we'll
work with some other suggestionsas well.
(07:40):
But also I want you to even ifyou don't believe me, I'm going
to try to help you believe thisthat any transfer, any skill
that you have today can beutilized in HR Full stop.
Any skill you have can beutilized in HR and is valuable
to HR.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Give us, give us an
example of one skill that you
would say that people won'tthink about so.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
So one thing that we
do in HR all the time change
management.
Big word, right, Big scary word, and I know people are like
change of management, experienceHold up.
Let me help you out.
So almost every single rolethat you're in, you have to deal
with a form of changemanagement.
You just don't call it that.
So what I say to people is thatyou're a transferable skill, is
(08:31):
a skill you already have.
It's just known by a differentname in your specific industry
or role.
Okay, and so change management.
As an example, when I was inretail right, I dealt with
change all the time, new guestrollout policies.
I dealt with, you know, changesto systems that I had to roll
(08:52):
out for my team and for ourleaders, for guests, right,
Everything in between.
So if you could just like takea step back, whatever role
you're in, for guests, right,Everything in between.
So if you could just like takea step back, whatever role
you're in customer service, ifyou're in real estate, if you're
in like, there's alwayssomething new or some change
that is rolled out.
Now, of course, there'sdifferent levels to it, of
course, but I can guarantee youthat I would be shocked, and
(09:17):
there has never been somebodythat I've worked with that has
not had some form of changemanagement Right.
And so change management,communication, project
management Again, I think wegive these words a lot of power
and if you don't havecredentials right, if you
haven't had a certification yet,which don't even get me started
(09:38):
on, then we feel like we don'thave the experience Right and I
just think it's the biggest,it's the biggest scam of all
time.
But just like you have theexperience, so that that would
be the first thing in terms oftransferable understanding,
transferable skills, the otherthing that I think really helped
me in being confident in mytransferable skills was making
(10:02):
sure that translated onto myresume.
So in today's market you haveto have a very magnetic resume.
But also your resume can't beand I know this is going to go
against everybody, but cannot bethe regurgitation of a job
description.
I shouldn't be able to take thatresume and drop it on somebody
(10:23):
else's desk and I don't knowthat it's print right, I don't
know that it's someone, thatit's specifically unique to you.
So you have to be able to findthat unique combination that
makes you you.
For example, I had a client whotalked about when we spoke
together.
She would talk about how she'spassionate about mentorship.
(10:44):
She was passionate about like X, y and Z and then when I looked
at her summary on her resume Iwas like where is that?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, it didn't
reflect it.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
It didn't reflect and
I can get, like most people,
their resume them and the realthem.
They usually are not matching.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
And I'm like I don't
know who you really are I don't
know who you actually are.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I see a job
description.
I call it the kitchen sink.
I see a kitchen sink of a jobdescription, but I don't see you
.
Where are you?
Speaker 1 (11:15):
So making sure that
your resume flex who you are as
a person and infusing it.
Yeah, it's a lot of tools outhere nowadays, especially in
2025, to help with resumebuilding, but some of those
tools cannot help you to reallypitch yourself and say, hey,
(11:35):
this is who I am Right.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah.
So, yeah, absolutely, and Ithink AI is such a such a great
tool to your point, like AI issuch a great tool, to your point
, like AI is such a great tool.
But, yes, I do find peoplegetting themselves lost in the
AI tools as well.
So you kind of got to like beable to pull that out is not
being afraid to network in 2025.
Right now, 300 plusapplications per role, if not
(11:58):
more.
If you really want to get aheadand you want to actually be put
ahead of the people in thosetiles, then you can't be afraid
of networking.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Networking is key.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
That's how I landed
my first role.
It was purely networking.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Purely networking.
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
I found someone on
linkedin, a stranger.
She referred me to an event.
I went to the event.
I found a recruiter.
The recruiter remember that'sawesome so that's awesome that
was part of my story as well.
Um, and then the interviewskills and 20 tweets like so.
A little different from when Ipivoted, I would say.
Um, interview skills have beenelevated quite a bit, or the
(12:42):
need to have a verysophisticated interview skill
set has elevated in 25 reallyfor, I think, many reasons.
One, this is an employer'smarket, but then two, just like
over time, I think everythingalways elevates a little bit,
and so if you're still using theskills you'll use 10 years ago
(13:03):
when you graduated college, it'stime for a refresh.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, refresh,
refresh.
Well, lashonique, thank you somuch for joining us today in
today's career chat.
Bite-sized inspiration.
Hey, if you're listening in totoday's chat, I want you to make
sure that you go back andlisten to Lasha Neeks a full
episode where she sharedvaluable nuggets on interviewing
(13:29):
like a pro in 2025.
We'll see you on the other side, you.