Reflecting on My Career Path

When I started this program, I was sure I wanted to get back to my role as an HR Business Partner. I had recently joined Netflix, despite the fact that there was no clear path back to that role within their organization. As I pressed on, many of my colleagues asked me, “Don’t you just want to pursue HR Ops or HRIS, you’re so good at that!” I am highly organized and process-oriented, which lent to success in these areas not just at Netflix, but across my whole career. I was very averse to this idea, and almost felt offended when I’d hear these comments every so often, because I inferred that being good at Ops meant I was not good at strategy, coaching and business - all parts of being a successful HRBP. I loved working on the HRIS side of HR especially, but didn’t want to get pigeonholed into a long-term career in that area by even specializing for a short time. However, my experience in ELG and in MSOD overall made me question my desire to get back to an HRBP role and whether or not I was over-indexing on it. Looking back on Pajaro 1 and the patterns that my narrative work helped me identify, I can clearly see why I’d want this job and also how I could be successful at it due to those patterns. Because of my own issues around feeling important in my family system, a role as an HRBP satisfies my deep seeded need to know all of the information…first….and often the information others aren’t allowed to know. My high value on being trusted and appreciated is also satisfied by this role, as successful HRBPs develop close-knit relationships with their leaders and are the go-to adviser and thought partner for them. On the other hand, I have a high affinity for empathy and relationship building, which makes it easy for me to build connections and build trust in the workplace. Looking at these facts, I wanted to stretch myself and see if I was looking for an HRBP role to satisfy my unmet needs within my family or because I was actually good at it an enjoy it. Ultimately I ended up trying out a more Ops oriented job at Evernote and hated every second of it. It was highly program and project management based, which was just not a great fit for how I work. I found that I missed talking to people on a daily basis and solving people-related problems. I missed task-oriented duties that weren’t long term initiatives, and could give me a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day. I’m glad I gave these roles a try to so that I could not only validate my desire to get back to an HRBP role, but also to learn more about myself and what I do not like to do.