Executive Career Advice
By Nick at 16 June, 2007, 8:52 pm
A student attending a top-20 law school has job experience that includes consulting a CEO/President of a privately held real estate investment group with 400 employees. Currently, he is in his law program’s Employer Legal Advice Clinic. He find the work very stimulating, and have decided that I would like to pursue my career in business by exploring positions in HR management. Eventually, he would like to attend a top-five graduate school to obtain his MBA in management. Would making this career choice be illogical? Should he practice employement law in lieu of working for a consulting firm before an MBA? What is the best career path that this individual can pursue to become an HR Executive and eventual CEO?
With emerging developments in workforce management, including quantitive analyses of the workforce, he sees the HR Executive position growing in strength and popularity; furthermore, a position that will segway into a CEO as the levels of sophisticated candidates continue to grow.
As you may suspect, he is rather confused as to his initial career path, and he is in the dark as to how to get the train on the right track. Often, when he attempts to rationalize his career goals to his colleagues, they do not seem to grasp the importance of a formal education in law. His boss is particularly skeptical of the value in deciding to pursue a career in HR, given my educational background.
To give you a better idea of where he is coming from, it is worthy to note that he studied philosophy with an emphasis in game theory and ethics as an undergraduate student. As a person, he loves to strategize and solve problems. He decided to enter law school in lieu of business school because he wanted to expound upon his analytic and critical skills while continuing to develop a level of professionalism. At the very least, he reasoned that a law degree would give him a competitive edge when ascending the ranks. Now, he is not so certain that he made the best decision. He is nonetheless certain that getting his law degree has made him a more intelligent worker.
The problem that he is currently having to solve is how does he market himself to employers? Although his career path is crystal clear to himself, it may seem transparent to an employer. Is an employer going to find much merit in his preparation? More important, how should he approach interviews for HR positions? Last, what positions should he interview for?
Kate Wendleton, President of The Five O’Clock Club, a national career coaching and outplacement organization, made the following comment:
If you really want to be the CEO eventually, you will probably need a broader path than a straight-line HR career. At some point, you will need some line experience with profit and loss responsibility, not that you need to worry about that now. But it is definitely something you need to keep in the back of your mind.
She went on to say that she met quite a few heads of HR in relatively large companies who had a legal background. The ones she thought of practiced law for a while in a law firm, and then went to the corporate side. They were definitely valued for their law experience. But simply having a law degree is a plus since so much of the HR job is affected by changes in the law, such as Sarbanes Oxley, the recent 409a, which affects executive compensation, and the new law requiring companies to disclose the compensation packages of senior executives. For one of her most highly attended HR events, are those where she addressed legal issues that affect HR. Being able to understand law is a real plus.
Having an undergraduate philosophy degree is also an excellent background because it teaches you how to think. It will serve you well the rest of your life. In fact, both of her sons studied philosophy as undergraduates in college. One of her sons now wants to be a physician, and the other wants to be a high-school principal. She thinks that this was another good choice they made.
Wendleton states that it’s a toss-up between whether you practice employment law or spend a stint at a consulting firm as your next step. Since you want the CEO position, I’d go for the consulting firm route first. I would not go into HR as my first step, given your long-term goal.
Finally, you might right that the HR executive position will become increasingly important in the running of companies. After all, HR is in charge of labor, and labor is everything. HR’s span of control and influence is increasing and management consulting will give you the metrics discipline needed by today’s top HR executives. Every company, both large and small, needs to have an HR person on their payroll.
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