Job profile
personnel officer (m/f/d)

What is a personnel officer?

The personnel officer is employed to carry out personnel administration and personnel development, and is responsible for appointing, dismissing and managing employees. The personnel officer uses HR marketing instruments to manage vacancies, recruits new candidates for open vacancies, and looks after most of the onboarding of new colleagues.

They also help (new) employees to find optimum working conditions, and are significantly involved in optimizing the working environment.

Personnel officer: Tasks and everyday challenges

Depending on the size and composition of the HR team, the personnel officer looks after a variety of tasks and therefore areas. This position is at the heart of every company. The occupant is responsible for looking after and encouraging employees from the day they join until they leave the company, be it for retirement or another employment opportunity. He or she is basically responsible for ensuring that the personnel requirements of a company are fulfilled in an optimum way.

Personnel officers are in contact with the management and also their colleagues when it comes to expanding the existing team or looking after current employees – from providing support in looking for a job within the company to expanding their own abilities to difficult departures of specialists and managers, among other things.

The personnel officer also provides advice about various personnel-related and labour law issues and challenges throughout the entire company. For example, these HR specialists are often involved in the development of company policies, and are also responsible for looking after documents and producing reports.

Basically, the following core areas can be summarized for personnel officers:

• Personnel requirement determination
• Recruitment
• Personnel deployment
• Personnel development
• Personnel cutbacks

Your everyday working life looks like this:

• You manage the personnel of your company yourself or together with your team, and keep an eye on personnel costs.
• You support the management in determining whether new employees are needed.
• You are responsible for advertising the job, and deciding which tools and platforms to use to appeal to the relevant people.
• You collaborate with the specialist department and the management manage and conduct interviews with your candidates.
• You develop the potential of the departments, and collect comprehensive information for the further education and training of the personnel.
• You draw up labour law-related documents such as references and contracts for the workforce.
• You analyse and evaluate the subject-specific and interdisciplinary personnel development of your company and develop appropriate reports for this purpose.

Personnel officer training

The vast majority of personnel officers have a university degree. Various universities now offer courses which concentrate on human resources – such as the course in human resources management.

Some German universities focus on human resources in their business administration course, which students can complete with a bachelor's or master's degree with a main focus on human resources.

Employment as a personnel officer is still possible even if you have completed an economics degree without a focus on human resources. Your induction will then be in accordance with the principle of "on-the-job training".

However, there is another way to get started: You can also take on the position with a completed commercial apprenticeship, several years of professional experience and additional HR training.

Personnel officer jobs: The career prospects

Since new employees are being sought in the majority of sectors and disciplines, the job prospects for HR officers are very promising – provided that you are looking for a communicative, challenging and varied job. With plenty of commitment and good communication skills you can become a reliable member of the human resources department (including personnel administrators and personnel consultants), particularly in medium-sized and large companies.

Personnel officers are also in demand in other departments, mainly in personnel training, further education and training and also in legal departments or commercial administration.

Is there such a thing as the perfect match between personnel officers and companies?

We are convinced that a suitable match can be found for every position, every company and every organization.

In order to fulfil the needs of all parties and successfully place personnel officers, we use our innovative "Find & Engage" concept. The means: We create comprehensive profiles of both our customers and our applicants, and bring together all of the information regarding requirements, skills and also very individual wishes in detail.

When we are identifying the perfect person, we match the company profiles with those of our candidates, and only contact the relevant potential partners if all of the criteria have been met.

Companies and HR professionals then talk to each other to find common ground in order to decide whether they can consider working together.

If you are genuinely interested, Hays will take care of the design of the (contractual) framework conditions. Personnel officers can sign a contract directly with the company or as a temporary worker at Hays.