As with any job, there are certain qualities that you should look for when hiring HR personnel. There are the obvious ones, such as being organized and empathic when dealing with other people.

Yet even if the basic traits are fulfilled, not everyone is meant to work in HR. In the article below, we’ll be looking at what businesses should be looking for when hiring for HR, how to hire the right personnel, and how their talent search can be made much easier.

What makes a good HR professional?

HR is essentially how a company faces its employees and shows that they care about their well-being. HR professionals should be able to communicate openly with employees, inviting them to share their thoughts, while still making it clear that there are rules to follow.

For example, HR professionals can’t survive if they don’t have excellent communication skills. Not only should they be able to make their points clear, but they should also demonstrate a willingness to really hear people out. These soft skills make them credible with employees, marking them as someone they can count on.

HR work also means being able to multitask. More often than not, numerous issues pop up in an HR professional’s day, forcing them to put their previous agenda on the backburner. One needs the discipline and time management skills to juggle various tasks, often facing down multiple disruptions throughout the day.

Aside from soft skills like time and communication, HR professionals should have knowledge of various legal and administrative guidelines related to work. For instance, they should know what to do if an employee complains about a salary discrepancy or sexual harassment at work.

All in all, HR professionals need to be incredibly well-rounded, possessing a variety of both soft skills and legal knowledge.

How to find the right HR people

Finding someone who can accomplish everything expected of HR is no easy task. The good news is there are steps one can take to make the responsibility a bit easier.

You’ll want to outline the core functions of the HR position clearly so applicants will get what the job entails. Will the job include recruitment, onboarding, or even termination? Will they have to manage employee salaries, bonuses, incentives, etc? It’s best to be clear from the start on the true scope of their work. If necessary, it’s also important to emphasize how the role might grow over time.

Promoting in the proper job channels is also important. Though job boards like LinkedIn and Indeed are effective tools, it will also pay to tap into your own personal network and ask for referrals. With referrals being one of the most effective modes of recruitment, leveraging it for a position as important as HR certainly can’t hurt.

Alternatively, a business can also choose to outsource the recruitment process entirely. Fortunately, Q2 HR Solutions is able to quickly scale up your search to the national level, helped by a team that’s composed of headhunters with decades of experience in recruitment. Even for a position that’s as highly skilled and specialized as HR, our fast-paced approach to hiring is a worry-free solution to getting the exact talent a business needs.

In conclusion, recruiting for HR may be a lot trickier than what many businesses initially thought. HR is a position that requires a delicate balance between soft and hard skills, an ability to constantly interface with people from all levels, and the aptitude to remain calm under pressure. The good news however is that there’s no shortage of solutions out there ready to make this difficult task much easier.

Though not everyone is meant to be in HR, it’s a position that no business should ever skimp out on.