How to transition from payroll into general HR
Payroll professionals get typecast in specialized administrative roles and siloed at big companies, making it difficult to even secure interviews for other human resources functions. Taking another payroll-focused job risks making your experience even more specialized rather than opening doors to broader HR roles.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1taking another payroll-focused role and networking heavily internally
- 2letting the compensation team know of interest and taking on stretch projects
- 3looking for a job separately at another company while working in payroll
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“At big companies, your work is pretty siloed and you might not have the chance.”source ↗
“I've been struggling to even get interviews for roles outside of payroll. Most of the callbacks I get is still payroll related.”source ↗
“Would having the Big 4 name on my CV have made it easier to transition into other HR functions later, either internally or externally? Or would taking another payroll-focused role have just made me even more specialised in payroll?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2Why is it so hard to hire an HR business partner?
- 2How to transition from technical work to management with no background
- 4How do you transition out of a generalist IT management role?
- 3How to find a remote HR job when LinkedIn isn't working
- 2Starting a first sole sysadmin job with no documentation
- 21Why is project management just doing admin and updating trackers?