If you’re a student wondering what to do with your life (something students tend to do), this is one career path worth checking out. HR is always changing, growing, becoming more strategic and – if you like dealing with people more than, say, spreadsheets or drafting tables – it’s really satisfying.

Which brings us, of course, to the key question in all of this: what do people who work in HR actually do?

In a survey of almost 6,000 HR professionals, we found that they work in all kinds of different fields and come from a variety of backgrounds:

• Most CHRPs work in a corporate/business environment (60%)
• Slightly more than half of HR professionals (56%) hold a Bachelor’s degree
• A quarter of respondents (25%) have been working in HR for 6 to 10 years, 18% for 3 to 5 years and 17% for more than 20 years
• About a third (35%) of HR professionals earn between $51,000 and $75,000 per year
• Almost three quarters of respondents (72%) think of themselves as an HR generalist (managing the day-to-day administration of HR policies and programs within an organization rather than an HR specialist (22%), who manages compensation , recruitment, training and development, and performance appraisal and other specific HR tasks).

HR professionals deal with many of the most important issues organizations face today, including organizational effectiveness, staffing, benefits and compensation, communications, employee relations, health, safety and security, HR information systems, HR research, labour and industrial relations, international HR, organizational learning, development and training. It’s a long and diverse list, which means you can build your career to suit your own strengths and interests. No pigeon holes here!