Human Resource Management Major
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About the Major
In human resource management, students learn how the world around them affects employees’ and employers’ experiences. They learn how to demonstrate the financial and societal impact of high-performing employees. And they learn how to pick great employees, train them to do high-quality work, reward them for that work and support their long-term development.
Jobs in Human Resource Management
- Human resource generalist
- Recruiter
- Growth strategy analyst
- Consultant
- Benefits specialist
Past Elon Human Resource Management Internships
- Amazon
- Campbell Soup
- Pfizer
- Wayfair
- WebMD
Related Majors
Opportunities to explore broad world of human resources made graduate a ‘well-rounded professional’
Connor Dwyer entered Elon University with a vague idea of what he wanted to do for a career: work in business management. But it wasn’t long into his studies when — thanks to the exposure Elon’s Love School of Business provided — he was able to narrow his focus to human resource management.
“Elon as a university really gives students the ability to go down their own path and do exactly what they want to do and learn more about what they’re interested in,” said Dwyer, who graduated in 2019 with a degree in management, specializing in HR, and minors in communications and finance. “When I took a deeper dive, the HR specialization was very appealing. What I liked about it — the whole business school curriculum as well — is you get a broad taste of everything. There’s accounting, there’s finance, there’s economics, so you’re able to be a well-rounded professional.”
Dwyer’s more defined focus from management to human resource management narrowed even further when he explored the benefits realm through one of Elon’s core courses. Benefits systems weren’t, he learned, as simplistic as just medical, dental and vision. In reality, it’s “unbelievably complicated,” and he enjoyed learning how the cogs work together. Today, it’s the focus of his job as a benefits specialist at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
I credit a lot of who I am as a professional and who I am as a person to my Elon education. … It’s given me a lot of opportunity, it’s given me a lot of knowledge, it really prepared me to be a professional in the workforce.
But Dwyer walked away from his college experience with more than knowledge under his belt — he accumulated years of experience by taking advantage of the university’s many hands-on opportunities.
He served as the personnel director for WSOE 89.3 FM, Elon’s student-run radio station — a role that came with substantial managerial responsibility. For four semesters in his freshman through junior years, he handled the training and scheduling for the 24/7 radio station.
“It gave me the ability and opportunity to work with different types of individuals with different needs, different desires and different styles of communication,” he said.
Dwyer also participated in several case competitions, including one during his senior year that focused on human resource management. The competitions, he said, were great opportunities to apply the skills he was learning in the classroom to real-world examples.
The senior-year competition was particularly special. “I was a senior, two months away from graduation, and that was a really good opportunity to show what I got, show what I did over four years of education,” he said.
Elon’s business school taught Dwyer to think about the bigger picture and see how all the pieces can come together. And that’s a lesson he encourages new Elon management students to remember.
“Go in with an open mind,” he recommended. “While it might seem like a very specific track going into human resources, the way the curriculum is written, the program covers everything, and you really get an opportunity to explore and see what you’re interested in.
“I credit a lot of who I am as a professional and who I am as a person to my Elon education,” he said. “I’m a very, very proud alum, and I’d recommend it 10 times over to anyone considering it. It’s given me a lot of opportunity, it’s given me a lot of knowledge, it really prepared me to be a professional in the workforce.”
Did You Know?
- Elon’s Accelerated 3+1 program gives human resource management majors the opportunity to earn a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration as well as a Master of Science in Business Analytics in just four years. The majority of undergraduate coursework is completed in the first three years, with graduate coursework in the fourth year.
- Elon added the human resource management major in the fall of 2020 (in prior years, business students interested in HR selected it as a career track within the management major). Elon’s program is recognized by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) to be fully aligned with its HR curriculum standards, and all human resource management majors are eligible to sit for the SHRM-CP professional certification that employers actively pursue.
- There are many opportunities for students to get real-world training in HR. They are encouraged to join the student chapter of SHRM and participate in SHRM-sponsored case competitions. And all HRM students are required to complete a consulting capstone course where they help real companies with human resource issues.
- The demand for well-trained HR professionals has been rising over the past decade. Employment of human resources specialists is projected to grow 10 percent to 15 percent from 2020 to 2030, faster than the average for all occupations.