Career Overview: The Human Resources (HR) career field in DoD contracting offers many exciting and challenging opportunities. The HR career field in DoD contracting is very similar to the civilian HR career field with a few differences. In the area of HR recruiting there are specific rules about former members of the military and government interviewing and accepting positions with DoD Contractors. Also, the majority of applicants are required to have government security clearances so knowledge about contractor hiring rules and DoD security classifications will greatly benefit personnel starting out in an HR recruiting field for a DoD contractor. HR recruiters also host and attend DoD career fairs for their companies.
Beyond recruiting, HR professionals assist their companies set up coordinate employee benefits, Insurance, retirement plans, and leave policies. They also assist with administering educational opportunities such as continuing education tuition reimbursement. Likewise, they usually administer the company’s employee annual performance evaluation system and process annual salary increases. HR also deals with employee complaints, performance issues, employee terminations and labor relations related to employee unions.
HR professionals also partner with management to develop and implement employee retention programs and assist senior management with community outreach activities.
Career Path: Personnel in the DoD HR career field have a diverse background. While many people start in the career field as an HR generalist or HR recruiter after college, there are others who transition into the HR career field after initially working in a separate professional job.
In either case, depending on the size of DoD contract organization they work for, HR professionals can specialize in certain areas of HR to include benefits, recruiting, training, or performance management. For smaller organizations most HR professionals get to work in all areas. As HR professionals move up the career ladder they are usually given more complex assignments with more responsibility.
Salaries: HR Analyst salaries vary by region, but start around ~$40k for entry level positions and can be in excess of $100k for HR Directors.
Professional Organizations: There are several professional organizations for HR professionals. Below is a listing of a few of them.
Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM)
National Human Resources Association (NHRA)
Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD)
Training & Certifications: For HR professionals there are multiple sources for training to include:
American Management Association HR Training
Business and Legal Resources HR Training
For certifications, the HR Certification Institute® (HRCI®) offers the Professional in Human Resources® (PHR®) certification.
Education: Most HR positions require a bachelors degree and having a masters degree is highly recommended.
Job Search: To review currently open HR jobs that DoD contractors are actively hiring for I recommend going to the career page of several of the DoD contractors profiled on this site and searching for jobs with the following titles “HR Generalist” or “Human Capital Analyst”, or “Talent Acquisition Specialist” or “Recruitment Specialist” or Employee Development Specialist” and review the jobs and job requirements that come up.