Skip to main content

At this level in your HR career your exposure to the business skyrockets, you can expect to spend quite a bit of your day in meetings with the managers in your assigned work area or division, and meetings with your executive also. Often you’ll be mentoring a number of more junior colleagues in the HR team, and while depending on the structure of the organization you’ll either report to a Manager of the Consulting area, or directly to the Manager HR, you do have quite a lot more responsibility.

Job Description (SAMPLE)

Title: Senior Human Resource Consultant
Division: Human Resources
Reports to: Manager Human Resource Consulting

Position Summary

The Senior Human Resources Consultant is accountable for the provision of accurate and timely human resource management advice and consultancy services to managers and staff. The Senior Human Resource Consultant will take a lead role in the development of human resource policy, and undertake human resource projects.

Duties & Responsibilities

1. Provide expert advice on a range of human resource queries and opportunities arising from within the organisation, in accordance with organisational policy and legislative requirements.

2. Implement human resource best practice strategies and practices which contribute to the organisations ability to meet identified human resource outcomes.

3. Take responsibility for the successful and timely completion of human resource related projects and priorities, as allocated.

4. Consult with organizational stakeholders on the development of policy and HR practices.

5. Scope and lead the procurement of new HR software tools to help support the business.

6. Assist with a range of Employment Relations queries and projects, including dispute resolution and disciplinary investigations, and other instances of conflict between unions, staff, and management.

7. Undertake human resource projects which contribute to the building of human resources within the organization.

Selection Criteria

Often the duties and responsibilities will be followed by key selection criteria, I haven’t included these as this area will differ across countries and industries – and indeed the size of the organization will impact on the selection criteria. However they will be tied back to the duties & responsibilities.

Qualifications/Knowledge

Previous experience within a similar role, and/or a degree in a relevant area such as Human Resources or Business Management.

I should mention too, at this point if you don’t have a degree, you progress will be somewhat stifled. Promotions from here are to managing an area such as ‘Manager HR Consulting’ or ‘HR Manager’, you competition will all have degree’s and experience as great as what you have. At this level it’s really time to start thinking about if you’re happy to see out your career at this level, or if you should start looking for a degree that fits your circumstance and interest.

Also Worth Checking Out: How To Write A Killer Job Description

By Brendan Lys

Operating at the intersection of Human Resources and Data Science, I leverage extensive specialist experience within Human Resources, with the methodologies and approaches of Data Science. This focus on the discovery of actionable insights from data, has been applied to areas such as: remuneration & benefits, workforce planning, recruitment, health & safety, diversity, and training. But what does the application of data science to HR challenges and opportunities actually look like. Within an HR framework the data we work with typically comes directly from our HRMIS, an advantage of using data science methodologies is that we can bring in additional data either held within the organization or from external sources - data which is out of reach from a pure HR analytics approach. Consider for example position descriptions, these contain a wealth of data that we typically ignore as its not in a analysis ready format. A side project I'm working on currently (April 2019) is using text mining on job descriptions to provide insights into which job family the position may fit into. The insights of my work have been enjoyed by organizations across a diversity of sectors including: Government (Australia and New Zealand), ASX and NZX listed companies, utilities, not for profit and higher education.