Harry M.
About me
| Harry M. | |
| History | |
| History | |
| Undergraduate | |
| James | |
| 2014 | |
| United Kingdom |
My employment
| HR Business Partner | |
| Imperial Tobacco | |
| United Kingdom | |
| HR, recruitment and training | |
| Large business (250+ employees) | |
| 2014 | |
| 32,000 | |
| 34,000 |
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A day in the life of a HR Business Partner in the United Kingdom
Getting the best out of people in a HR role
My career goals when I graduated
I honestly had no criteria - I just wanted to do something I would enjoy
My career history
2014-2015 PMO Analyst
2015-2016 Transformation Programme Manager
2016- HR Business Partner
What has helped my career to progress
Relationships. Aside from working hard and delivering - it's the relationships you make at work that are so crucial to unlocking opportunities
Courses taken since graduation
Operations Academy Future Leaders (Planned)
CIPD (Planned)
How my studies have helped my career
A real appreciation of different cultures. Genuinely seems hard to believe studying history at York but it is actually invaluable.
What surprised me about my career so far
How many brilliant life experiences I have had - I've been to so many amazing places.
Where I hope to be in 5 years
Senior HR Manager of a Small Country or Factory Site.
My advice to students considering work
Try and get a real diverse range of experiences - not necessarily work experience but sports, societies etc. Also remember once you get to assessment centre your experience or qualifications are irrelevant- its about your personality and your abilities.
Also know you weaknesses are just development areas - everyone has them regardless of experience and be prepared to talk about them. It's not a bad thing.
My advice about working in my industry
Be open minded. I get a lot of challenges about ethics but this really isn't the case. Also be prepared to travel and if needs be up sticks and move to another country - mobility is such an asset.
Other advice
Don't be clichéd. I reject so many grads at assessment centre who have clearly just read the Student Room and feel the need to drop in group exercise clichés.
Contacting me
Anything you want to ask. I assess current MBA students and grads as part of my remit and have done a fair few interviews from the other side.
What I do
Try to get the best for the business by getting the best out of our people. This is all about trying to enhance the capability of our people by giving them both the tools and the opportunity to succeed - be it anything from training to a relocation to Kyrgyzstan.
Of course I also have to handle the difficult things too - such as union relations, factory closures and restructuring; working in one of the most regulated and rapidly-declining industries in the World.
Skills I use and how I developed them
Stakeholder Management - which is a really fancy way of saying relationships. Without being able to interact with people nothing is possible. On top of that I've had to really work hard at being more commercial, cost-focused and able to have really difficult conversations.
What I like most
My role doesn't have a home location and our company is based in 160 different countries so I get a lot of opportunity to visit some incredible places.
What I like least
Financials. Which are very important but as a former history student numbers still scare me.
What surprised me most
How flexible and creative my job is - I didn't expect to have quite so much freedom and quite so many opportunities.
Next steps...
If you like the look of Harry’s profile, the next steps are down to you! You can send Harry a message to find out more about their career journey. If you feel you would benefit from more in-depth conversations, ask Harry to be your mentor.