I have a sociology degree and a master's in organizational communication. I've been a salesperson, an academic advisor, a pastor, and a traveling musician. I once wrote that I've had more jobs than Forrest Gump. I meant it.
For a long time, I treated that path as something to explain. Today, I see it as the reason I'm good at this work.
I think about this a lot when I coach people leaders.
So many of you came to HR from somewhere else. Psychology. Teaching. Counseling. Operations. A liberal arts degree a relative once asked you to justify over Thanksgiving dinner.
And I've watched plenty of you treat that background as a gap. Something to make up for with another certification.
But what I've seen, over and over, is the background you're tempted to downplay is often where your edge lives.
The former teacher knows how to make a concept stick in a room full of skeptics. The counselor hears what's underneath the conflict. The writer knows the language that will land. The sociology major spots the pattern before anyone else does.
Those are executive skills. Your peers spent years learning finance, sales, or engineering. You spent years learning people.
What did your road into HR teach you that you still use every week?