Career in Human Resources: Transition to HR After MBA

Career in Human Resources: How to Transition into HR Roles After an MBA

Introduction

Interest in a career in Human Resources is growing among MBA professionals, especially those drawn to people, culture, and organisational change. However, transitioning into HR requires more than interest – it demands clarity on HR roles, functions, and how a profile signals readiness for the field. This article breaks down a real GoCrackIt career conversation to show how professionals can approach an HR transition with structure, credibility, and direction.

Meet the Mentor

Navneetha Suvarna is a seasoned Human Resources professional with over twelve years of experience across corporate and operational HR roles, having worked with organizations such as Star Health and Allied Insurance, MRG Group, Ecom Express, Ola Cabs, and Mackenzer Technologies. She holds an MBA in HR from Sikkim Manipal University, a PGCHRM from XLRI Jamshedpur, and a BBA from Annamalai University. As a mentor, she focuses on helping candidates build a clear understanding of HR as a profession, refine career direction, and translate their experience and education into credible HR profiles, with emphasis on role clarity, professional positioning, and long-term career development in Human Resources.

Interest in HR is increasingly common among professionals who want to work closer to people, organizations, and leadership. What often emerges alongside that interest are practical questions: what do HR roles actually involve, how does one prepare for them, and how should a profile begin to reflect that direction?

A recent GoCrackIt Career Conversion session became a space to explore exactly these questions. The session was led by GoCrackIt mentor Navneetha Suvarna and involved a mentee who brought over five years of professional experience across finance consulting and startup environments, with extensive client interaction and exposure to internal operations, hiring, and training. She was pursuing an MBA from a premium B-school and exploring a transition into HR, with a specific interest in DEI, organizational culture, and change management.

Her academic program did not offer a formal HR specialization. She came to the session seeking guidance on how her profile could move toward HR and how her resume and preparation approach should evolve to support that shift.

From this point in the conversation, the mentor and mentee began working through what that transition would actually require.

Understanding HR as a professional function

After understanding the mentee’s experience and her interest in moving into HR, the mentor began by grounding the discussion in how HR functions actually operate inside organizations.

“If you’re really interested in HR, the first thing to understand is that HR is people management. And people management is not one activity. It’s an entire lifecycle.”

She then laid out the structure of that lifecycle.

“You start from recruitment. It’s what we call hire-to-retire. From sourcing and selection, to onboarding, probation, payroll, benefits, performance management, internal movement, engagement, and finally separation. HR is involved across the entire employee life cycle.”

Within this framework, the mentor connected the discussion directly to the areas the mentee was interested in.

“Culture, DEI, and change management sit on the strategic side of HR. They are very important areas. But they build on an understanding of how HR functions actually work.”

She then made explicit how strategic HR roles relate to this functional base.

“What you will be working on there is transformational and strategic. But understanding the core processes gives you credibility and depth.”

In grounding the conversation this way, the mentor placed the mentee’s interests within the larger structure of human resources, linking culture and change roles to the everyday systems through which organizations manage people.

Shaping a clear HR direction

When the mentee spoke about being drawn toward organizational culture, transformation, and DEI, the mentor immediately framed this as a concrete direction within HR.

“So that is a much clearer answer. You are interested in culture and change management.”

“Change management is about introducing new concepts or complete transformation of an organization. It can be culture. It can be practice. It can be the way the organization is structured.”

From there, the mentor emphasized the level of responsibility such roles carry.

“Bringing change into an organization is definitely not a small thing. It needs leadership qualities. You need to analyse, find the gaps, present them to management, suggest strategic ideas, and then implement them, train people, and sustain that change.”

“For transformation and change work, leadership capability becomes very important. That’s where management education starts to align. These specific roles are usually offered in large and mid sized organizations that invest in culture, capability development, and long-term people strategies.”

What this meant for the resume

With greater clarity on HR direction, the mentor returned to the resume.

“Since you’re moving domains, you will have to highlight your HR internships and projects more. Your resume should start reflecting where you are going.”

She spoke about how structure shifts when functional focus changes.

“Your earlier work experience will be there. But your HR exposure needs to come forward so that someone scanning the profile understands your intent quickly.”

The mentor also addressed readability and recruiter behaviour.

“There is a lot of content here. As a recruiter, I may not have so much time. There should be space and sharper points so it’s easier to go through.”

When the mentee asked how to show impact in qualitative HR work, the mentor reframed what “measurable” means in people roles.

“Impact doesn’t only come from revenue numbers. You can talk about scope—how many companies you studied, how many people you engaged, what processes you built, what changed because of that work.”

The resume, in this framing, became less about including every experience and more about clarity—clarity of direction, relevance, and the kind of HR role being prepared for.

Building HR depth beyond the resume

Throughout the session, the mentor emphasized that HR credibility is built as much through preparation as through presentation. A resume can open doors, but interview performance and long-term fit depend on how deeply a candidate understands how HR actually operates inside organizations.

She repeatedly returned to the importance of structured exposure.

“Please go through a lot of case studies on organisational design, HR systems, DEI and change management. Understand what organizations are actually doing. That gives you substance in interviews.”

Alongside this, the mentor stressed the value of learning directly from practitioners.

“Connect with people from HR and especially DEI and Change management background. See how HR functions in their organizations. You’ll start seeing patterns of how these roles work.”

Formal learning was discussed as another layer of grounding.

“You can also look at short certifications. Generalist HR certifications help you understand how HR roles operate and how the processes fit together.”

Internships, finally, were described as both developmental and strategic.

“Choose internships in HR. That gives you something concrete to talk about and builds your understanding of the function.”

Taken together, the mentor’s guidance outlined preparation as an ongoing process—one that combines organizational study, practitioner insight, functional learning, and hands-on experience to build real depth in HR.

Conclusion

By the end of the conversation, the session had given the mentee a clearer way to think about an HR transition. HR was no longer an abstract interest, but a structured professional space—with defined functions, identifiable career tracks, and concrete expectations around capability and leadership. The discussion helped place her interest in culture and change within that structure and clarified how role understanding, resume signaling, and long-term development connect when building a career in human resources.

The session, anchored in mentor guidance and industry context, demonstrated how GoCrackIt enables these kinds of focused career conversations. Rather than treating a resume as an isolated document, the platform brings mentors and candidates together to examine direction, function, and professional alignment—helping individuals shape profiles and preparation paths that reflect how roles in fields like HR actually take form inside organizations.

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Tagged Career in Human Resources, Change Management Careers, DEI Careers, GoCrackIt Career, HR Career Transition, HR Resume, Human Resources Jobs, MBA in HR, Organizational Culture, Secondary Tags