How Is AI Changing Human Resources Careers?

As with nearly every industry today, Human Resources is being affected by artificial intelligence. Hiring platforms can help sort applicants. Managers use AI tools to draft job postings. Prospective employees use AI to tailor resumes to those listings. From automating routine tasks to helping analyze large amounts of workforce data, AI is becoming part of the HR world.

That doesn’t eliminate the need for HR professionals. It changes some of the work they do and may change the knowledge and skills they need to bring to the workplace.

Understanding where AI fits, where human judgment still matters, and how the two work together may become increasingly important for anyone building a career in HR.

AI is changing how HR professionals approach recruiting, training, workforce analytics, and other workplace responsibilities.

AI Is Changing Entry-Level HR Work

AI is affecting a growing number of jobs and workplace functions, including some of the routine and repeatable tasks traditionally associated with entry-level positions.

For someone entering HR, that may change what employers value. Knowing how to complete a task remains important, but so does understanding why the task matters, how it fits within the larger organization, and when technology may not provide the full answer.

Communication, adaptability, critical thinking, judgment, and interpersonal skills can complement technical capabilities. Adult learners may also bring previous workplace and life experience that helps them understand situations, people, and organizations in ways technology alone cannot.

AI Automates Routine HR Work

Much of an HR professional’s day can involve recurring administrative tasks. Drafting job descriptions, scheduling interviews, answering common employee questions, communicating policy updates, and managing documentation can consume significant time.

AI and automation can help with many of these activities.

Applicant tracking systems can help identify applicants whose resumes contain relevant skills, experience, or qualifications. Scheduling tools can coordinate candidates and hiring managers. Chatbots and other systems can help employees find information about benefits, policies, procedures, and common workplace questions.

These tools can create efficiencies, but using AI in HR also introduces additional responsibilities. When automated tools contribute to employment decisions, HR professionals need to consider appropriate human oversight, applicable employment laws, privacy, and the potential for unintended bias.

How AI Can Support Employee Training

AI can also help organizations create, deliver, and personalize employee training.

HR and learning professionals may use AI to develop training materials, create scenarios, summarize information, or adjust learning experiences for different roles. An organization might use AI to help create a workplace training simulation in which employees work through realistic situations and receive feedback based on established policies.

AI can also help organizations tailor training based on an employee’s role, learning needs, and previous training results.

The technology may make training more adaptable and efficient, but HR professionals still determine what employees need to learn, whether the material is accurate, and whether the training supports organizational goals.

AI Digs into HR Data

HR departments collect significant amounts of information about hiring, retention, performance, compensation, and employee engagement. They may supplement that information with industry, state, or national workforce trends.

AI can help HR professionals analyze that information, identify patterns, and turn large amounts of data into more useful insights.

For example, analysis might identify characteristics shared among employees leaving an organization or highlight potential staffing and skills gaps. Those findings can help inform workforce decisions.

But identifying a pattern isn’t the same as understanding it.

HR professionals still need to evaluate the quality of the underlying data, consider the organizational context, and determine whether an AI-generated conclusion makes sense before deciding what action to take.

AI and Performance Reviews

Performance management is another area where AI may reduce administrative work.

AI tools can help organize performance information, summarize accomplishments and feedback, identify patterns, and create an initial draft of a performance review.

But an employee’s performance should not simply be reduced to an AI-generated summary.

Managers and HR professionals bring knowledge of the employee, team, workplace, and circumstances surrounding the information. AI may help process information, but people remain responsible for applying judgment, experience, context, and empathy to employment decisions.

What Future HR Professionals Need to Know

As AI becomes more common in the workplace, one responsibility of HR professionals may be helping organizations determine when and how it should be used.

That requires more than knowing how to operate an AI tool.

HR professionals need to understand recruiting, compensation, employee relations, training, employment law, organizational behavior, and business operations well enough to evaluate technology within that larger context.

AI may produce an answer quickly. The HR professional still needs to determine whether that answer is accurate, appropriate, legally sound, and useful.

That combination of technology and human judgment may become one of the defining skills of the next generation of HR professionals.

Responsible AI Use Matters in HR

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s AI Risk Management Framework encourages organizations to consider issues including privacy, fairness, transparency, accountability, security, and reliability when developing or using AI systems.

Within an HR department, that can mean establishing guidelines for which tools employees may use, what information may be entered into them, how AI-generated information is reviewed, and where human decision-making is required.

Those rules also need to work during an ordinary workday, not only exist in a policy document.

For HR professionals, understanding AI therefore isn’t just about learning what the technology can do. It’s also about understanding when to use it, how to evaluate its output, and when human judgment needs to take the lead.

Building an HR Career as the Profession Changes

Technology may change individual HR tasks, but building a career in the field still requires an understanding of people, organizations, employment practices, business, and leadership.

Education can also evolve as your career does. Someone beginning or advancing in HR may start by developing a broad foundation in human resource management at the bachelor’s level. As responsibilities grow, graduate education can provide an opportunity to expand into management, organizational strategy, and broader business leadership.

An HR Education Pathway

Bachelor’s Level → Build the HR Foundation

National American University’s online Bachelor of Science in Human Resource Management develops knowledge across human resources and the broader business environment, including areas such as staffing, compensation, employment law, training, management, and organizational decision-making.

Master’s Level → Expand into Management and Leadership

For professionals looking to build on a bachelor’s degree, NAU offers two graduate pathways that can extend HR knowledge into broader organizational leadership:

Master of Management (MM) + HR Management Specialty

The Master of Management develops broader management and leadership knowledge while offering an HR Management specialty. HR specialty coursework includes areas such as training and development, HR analysis, employee evaluation and compensation, and employment and labor law.

OR

Master of Business Administration (MBA) + Human Resource Management Credential

The MBA provides a broader graduate-level business education with the opportunity to earn a Human Resource Management credential through HR-focused graduate coursework.

Bachelor’s in HR → Graduate Management or Business Education → Broader Leadership Knowledge

There isn’t one required educational route through an HR career. The appropriate degree level and program depend on your previous education, experience, professional goals, and the positions you plan to pursue.

As HR continues to change, however, the ability to understand both the human side of an organization and the technologies influencing how organizations operate may become increasingly valuable.

Explore National American University’s online human resource management and graduate business programs to determine which pathway may fit your educational and career goals.