If you had the chance to ask a highly successful human resources professional for career advice would you?  Well,  you don’t even have to ask. It’s available free online. The founder of Success in HR, Alan Collins, recently shared 8 tips for excelling in HR on his website.

8 Tips for Excelling in HR 

1. Make Yourself Indispensable
   • Become the HR go-to person in your specialty or area of business. Create demands for your services by doing things that others can’t or won’t do.
2. Know Your Business Cold
   • Master how your organization operates and generates revenue. It’s easy to impress clients with your knowledge of HR… when you’ve impressed them with your knowledge of their business first.
3. Go the Extra Mile
   • Earn a reputation for over-delivering. Get things done, faster, better or cheaper. Perform beyond your HR job description and you’ll inspire confidence and gain respect.
4. Quantify Your Contributions
   • Use metrics and hard numbers (#, %, $) to demonstrate your value to others and show that your HR programs & key initiatives have clear impact and enables the business to perform even better.
5. Stay On Top of Your Game
   • Get coaching. Seek out stretch assignments. go to seminars & workshops. Read articles. Embrace new technology. Stay sharp because just when you think you’re winning the rat race… along come faster rats!
6. Be Your Clients Trusted Advisor
   • Listen, serve them, and be their sounding board. Help them excel and grow. Make sure your HR priorities align with and help drive their business priorities.
7. Act With Integrity 
   • Fess up to mistakes quickly. Admit when you are wrong. Do the right thing. Your reputation for honesty and candor will compensate for the occasional discomfort of telling the truth.
8. Get Feedback Regularly
   • Then act on it without being defensive. Consider feedback a gift that will raise your performance. When receiving it, the best response is always: “Thank you!”

While these tips mention HR, you can easily apply them to mostly any profession. For example, tip #1: You can become the go-to person in your specialty or area of business. You can also create demands for your services by doing things that others can’t or won’t do. Right?  The question is do you want to do this? Give this one a try along with some of the other tips and you might be surprised when you start excelling in your career.

That’s it!  I am truly grateful for the wealth of career advise that is available free online. Aren’t you? I’d love to know your thoughts on these tips. Hit me up in the comments below. Oh, BTW… I’m still celebrating. Until next time….

Cheers!