Why is looking for your next specialist HR job so hard?
There is an irony to being an unemployed HR professional.
For years, you have helped other people navigate careers. You have recruited them, promoted them, developed them, coached them, managed redundancies, rewritten organizational structures and perhaps even told them that losing a job does not define their professional worth.
And now you are the one looking for work.
Suddenly, the advice sounds rather different when you are the person receiving it. “Network more.” “Speak to recruiters.” “Apply for everything.” “Update your LinkedIn profile.” “Be open to transferable skills.” “Something will come along.”
All perfectly reasonable advice. And yet, when you are three months into a search and still haven't found the right role, none of it feels particularly reassuring.
The strange experience of becoming a candidate
One of the biggest adjustments for senior HR professionals is psychological.
You may have spent the last twenty or more years being the person with the answers. People came to you with difficult employee situations. CEOs asked for your advice. Managers wanted help. Candidates wanted your approval. You were the person sitting on the other side of the recruitment process.
Now you are updating your CV and wondering whether someone will call you back. It can be surprisingly uncomfortable.
And it can be particularly difficult for HR professionals because we know how recruitment works. We know that recruiters receive hundreds of applications. We know how quickly CVs can theoretically be screened. We know that job descriptions are often written around an ideal candidate who may not actually exist. We know that an internal candidate can suddenly appear late in a process. We know that “we'll get back to you” doesn't always mean that someone will get back to you. In other words, we know too much.
Don't confuse silence with rejection
One of the most damaging things about unemployment is the silence.
You apply for a role. Nothing happens. You contact someone. No response. You speak to a recruiter. They say they'll keep you in mind.
Weeks pass. You start asking yourself whether something has changed. Has the market moved on? Is my experience no longer relevant? Am I too senior? Too expensive? Too specialized? Too old? Not international enough? Too international?
The problem is that silence provides no useful information. And humans are remarkably good at filling information gaps with negative explanations.
Sometimes the reason you haven't heard anything is simply that there is nothing to hear. The role may have been paused. The hiring manager may have changed. The company may be reconsidering the position. The recruiter may be waiting for the client. The process may be moving extraordinarily slowly. Or someone else may simply have been selected. Not every silence is a judgement on your career.
Your first instinct may be to apply for everything
This is understandable. When you are unemployed, activity feels like progress. So you start applying.
Then you apply for something slightly outside your experience. Then something significantly outside your experience. Then a role that is below your previous level because you think you should be realistic. Then another role because, frankly, you need something. Before long, your search has become: “Anything that someone might possibly hire me to do.”
That is rarely a good position for a senior HR professional.
Your objective should not be to maximize the number of applications. It should be to maximize the number of credible opportunities. There is a difference.
You may need to become more specific, not less
This can feel counterintuitive. When the search isn't working, many people broaden their message maybe along the lines of “I am an experienced HR leader who can work across all aspects of people, talent, culture and transformation.”
You’ll think that sounds impressive. But it also sounds like thousands of other HR professionals. Daily, my colleagues and I hear people describing themselves with the same adjectives, skills and strengths, as so many of the other job seekers who are seeking our support.
Instead, ask yourself: What problem am I particularly good at solving?
Perhaps you are exceptional at leading HR through rapid international growth with particularly aggressive timelines and budgets. Perhaps you have repeatedly integrated acquisitions with minimal regretted talent and client losses. Perhaps you are strongest in organizational transformation where operational basics were fundamentally broken and the workforce was exceptionally resistant to change. Perhaps your experience is particularly valuable in private-equity-backed businesses because of your work history in both compensation and HR systems as well as business partnering. Perhaps you are a highly experienced employee-relations leader who can stabilize complex organizations without strikes or other union escalations. Perhaps you are a CHRO who excels at helping CEOs turn a business around.
Your career may contain dozens of capabilities. But the market needs to understand the few things for which it should remember you as having unique expertise to offer.
Your CV is not your career
Another trap for senior HR professionals is trying to put everything into the Resume.
Twenty-five years of experience. Every leadership responsibility. Every transformation programme. Every qualification. Every achievement. Every committee. Every country. Every system. The result can be an impressive document that tells the reader almost nothing about what you want to do next.
Your CV is not an autobiography. It is a positioning document. It should help someone quickly understand:
What level are you operating at?
What are you exceptionally good at?
Why might your experience be relevant to this particular organization?
If those answers aren't obvious, adding another two pages probably won't solve the problem.
Be careful with executive recruiters
There is another misconception worth challenging.
Executive recruiters can be extremely valuable to a senior HR professional. But they are not a personal job-search service.
A recruiter is normally engaged by an organization to fill a particular mandate. Their responsibility is to identify and assess people who fit that mandate. That means a recruiter can think highly of you and still have absolutely nothing appropriate for you in their pipeline of search mandates. It also means that sending your CV to every executive recruiter you can find is unlikely to transform your search.
A smaller number of genuine relationships with recruiters who understand your market can be much more valuable. And ideally, those relationships should not begin on the day you become unemployed.
Don't disappear while you are looking
This is perhaps one of the easiest mistakes to make.
You become embarrassed about being unemployed. You stop posting. You stop attending events. You stop contacting people because you don't want every conversation to become: “I'm looking for a job.”
Don't disappear. You are still a valuable HR leader. You still have experience. You still have opinions. You still understand the market. You still know things that other people don't. Talk about them. Write about them. Attend industry events. Have conversations that aren't about asking for a job. Help someone else. Make an introduction. Share an interesting article. Offer your perspective.
Your professional identity should not go into hibernation simply because your employment has ended.
Don't make networking transactional
If the first time someone hears from you in five years is:
“Hi, I'm looking for a CHRO role. Let me know if you hear of anything.”
…don't be surprised if the response is underwhelming.
Relationships don't suddenly become meaningful because you need something.
Give yourself permission to have a bad day
This may sound like an unusual piece of career advice for an HR professional.
But unemployment can be exhausting.
You can spend an entire day applying for jobs and have absolutely nothing tangible to show for it. You can have a fantastic interview and then hear nothing for three weeks. You can watch former colleagues announce promotions while you are sitting at home wondering what happened to your own career.
You can feel embarrassed. Angry. Bored. Anxious. Optimistic. Then anxious again. All in the same day.
That doesn't make you weak. It makes you human.
And you don't need to turn unemployment into a relentless productivity exercise. Some days will be productive. Some won't.
The important thing is not to allow a difficult period to become a judgement about your entire career.
Your next job doesn't have to be your last job
There is another pressure senior HR professionals sometimes put on themselves.
After reaching a certain level, every next appointment feels as though it has to be bigger. More people. More countries. More compensation. Bigger title. Larger organization. More responsibility.
But perhaps your next role doesn't need to be bigger. Perhaps it needs to be better. Better CEO. Better culture. Better board. More interesting business problems. More autonomy. More flexibility. A chance to build something rather than inherit it. A role where your experience is genuinely valued. A role where you get to see your family and friends rather than missing irreplaceable moments.
Career progression doesn't always mean climbing. Sometimes it means choosing.
Use unemployment to gain clarity
If you are between roles, one of the most valuable things you can do is become brutally honest with yourself.
What do you actually want next? What kind of organization brings out your best? What kind of CEO do you work well with? What are you no longer prepared to tolerate? Which parts of your previous job did you love? Which parts did you never want to do again? What are you genuinely exceptional at? And what have you been doing for years simply because you were good at it?
You don't often get the opportunity to step back and ask these questions when you're fully employed.
And remember this
Being unemployed is a status. It is not an identity.
You may currently be without a job. You are not without experience. You are not without relationships. You are not without value. And you are certainly not starting your career again.
You are taking a very experienced professional proposition back into the market and trying to find the organization where it makes sense.
That can take time. It can be frustrating. It can require some humility. It may require changing your approach. But don't let the fact that you are temporarily between employers convince you that you have somehow become less of a professional.
You are still the HR leader you were the day before your employment ended.
The challenge now is helping the right people see it.
About the Author
Ian Mael is valued across his HR network for his diligent communications and authentic partnerships. As the leader for interim HR executive hires at Carter Morris, he brings over 15 years of recruitment experience for multi sector hires within demanding deadlines for the full range of specialist roles within the HR profession.