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I Hate it Here is your insider’s guide to surviving and thriving in HR, from someone who’s been there. It’s not about theory or buzzwords — it’s about practical, real-world advice for navigating everything from tricky managers to messy policies.
Every newsletter is written by Hebba Youssef — a Chief People Officer who’s seen it all and is here to share what actually works (and what doesn’t). We’re talking real talk, real strategies, and real support — all with a side of humor to keep you sane.
Because HR shouldn’t feel like a thankless job. And you shouldn’t feel alone in it.
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Resource Roundup!
Katrina Kibben shared this post showing how to build practical solutions with AI.
Nan Doud showed off what she’s building in terms of a job evaluator tool and Shawna Wilkinson shared hers here (see more here).
Here’s a post where I shared some ways you can bring AI into your own job search and show off your AI skills at the same time!
Chris Lowe (a recruiter) shared this quick tool he built in Claude to get the background of companies - recruiters, build this! Job seekers, you could use this when searching!
And my network is hiring! All of these are from connections/former colleagues - I can make intros!
A former colleague is hiring a project manager at Flock Safety.
Here’s a great remote recruiter opportunity.
DC-based mission-driven COO opportunity here!
And a director of business intelligence with my former employer!
Full-time remote executive assistant opportunity here.
Why I’m #teamclaude now
The last few weeks, I finally made the transition from ChatGPT to Claude. Why?
Well, the thing that tipped me over the edge was around how they navigated demands from the Pentagon around how their technology is being used. But beyond that, my employer has been investing a lot in our training around using Claude Code and Claude Cowork, and the features have been super impactful to my work.
P.S. I made a quick video showing how to bring context over from ChatGPT to Claude!
A few of my favorite use cases:
Building skills in Claude Code
Skills are instructions for repetitive tasks that you may find yourself doing frequently at work. This could include a report or progress to goal update that you send weekly, a project status update template, or an email that you send regularly. A a skill basically trains Claude to run that task for you on demand.
A few examples of skills I built that I’m using regularly include:
- my weekly recruiting PTG for execs
- my monthly hiring bottlenecks analysis for execs
- a daily digest of items I need to take action on
- advisory council for problem-solving where sub-agents take on different personas to give me feedback from a variety of lenses on a challengeUsing Claude Cowork across our systems at work
Claudecowork connects with Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, and a variety of the other software we use at work. It runs as a virtual machine on your computer so conversation history is stored locally on your computer rather than in the cloud. Claude tells me I thought let you know that Anthropic notes it's still a research preview and recommends avoiding strictly regulated data for now. But over time, this could be a great solution for those working with more sensitive data, like those of us in HR.Creating content with Claude
I feel strongly that AI is ever going to take over my voice. But I do like to use AI to poke holes in things I've written. And I find that Claude is more effective at giving me feedback or identifying places. As an example, here’s feedback from Claude on a piece of content I wrote. And feedback from ChatGPT on the exact same content. Claude operates as a partner looking to strengthen what I’ve done while ChatGPT seems intent on restructuring the whole thing in a way that it deems superior regardless of my personal voice or goals. For this reason, I've shied away from using ChatGPT as a content tool, but I could actually see using Zapier in this way.Building tools
This is probably the most exciting one: I've built actual functioning apps or websites using Claude over the past few weeks. Like I coded a fully functioning website that I deployed with Vercel. I would of course need to test these out more extensively before I unleash them on the world, but the reality is it's pretty cool that someone with no technical training can do this with AI.
🙋Answering Your Questions🙋
Each week, I’ll answer one (or more!) of your questions in this section. You can submit your questions here.
Are you worried about the state of the job market? This seems never-ending. I’m on year 3 of just working contracts to get by and I’m losing hope.
I'm sorry you're going through this. I can only imagine how disorienting 3 years of feeling like you’re in limbo can feel.
Unfortunately, I can't with confidence say that things are going to improve anytime soon, in part because I'm just not enough of an expert, and in part because things don't feel very predictable for us as a society right now. We're still adjusting from the level of over-hiring that happened in 2021 and 2022. A lot of these companies that have done massive layoffs are not inclined to do them again because they're both disruptive and expensive.
There are so many unknowns and so much volatility in the broader environment right now. people aren't quite sure what impact AI is going to have, we're at war, we're never sure what to expect in terms of the economic decisions that are being made at the federal level, and interest rates remain high, which means companies are less likely to invest in growth.
And in this environment, contractors or fractional employees actually make a lot more sense than investing in a full-time hire. And so I think more companies are going to lean into that.
Some of the options people have in this environment:
Become a true expert at using AI to accelerate your impact. every company wants to figure out how to use AI to fuel growth, and if you're someone who can help them do that, then you're going to be in demand.
If you want full-time work, focus on the industries that are hiring - AI tech companies, clean energy, infrastructure, and semiconductor manufacturing are some of the areas with the highest rates of job creation. I'd imagine in our current environment, anything to do with the military/defense will be getting major investments, and focus on some of the sectors that are least vulnerable to automation. Areas like skilled trades, engineering, logistics, manufacturing, education, social assistance, and healthcare.
Build your own business. I want to acknowledge that this can be challenging and not everyone is cut out for it. But you may be better off selling your own consulting services than taking contract gigs through companies. if you have a strong skill set and a decent network, this may be easier to get off the ground than you might think.
There may be a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel - with the Fed cutting interest rates, this might fuel more investment. we also have a government who recognizes that a failing economy and a bad job market isn't doing them any favors, and so they may be more motivated to take action to turn things around.
But all that to say, it has been a really tough period, and I'm not confident that it's going to change anytime soon, unfortunately.
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