Inspired by a recent study on the HR profession, The Couch?! this week returns to the age old topic of HR stereotypes. Are you competitive, obsessed with record keeping and do you thrive on a good bit of gossip?

So which out of these stereotypes do you think are untrue/true?

You do fit the stereotype if:-

1. you’re female (might be a bit controversial – but true!)
2. shop at M&S for your suits
3. are obsessed with record keeping
4. are quite conservative more Margaret Thatcher than Bridget Jones
5. think you are politically correct but secretly love a good gossip
6. adopt a favourite phrase such as: adding value
7. are more pop than rock
8. are computer illiterate
9. take long lunches
10. your favourite holiday destination is Morocco

For all its campaigning efforts, The Couch?! always seeks to keep its finger on the professional pulse. Could there be HR Zone members who feel the days of this stereotype are numbered and a new generation of HR managers has arrived.

What we need here is one of our trademark interactive market samples. Share your anecdotes with The Couch?! by posting a comment below and help us document HR’s social anthropology. If you have a photo that proves you do/don’t fit the stereotype – even better. Email it to me the community manager Dawn-Marie Dart and we’ll include it in your comment.

The Couch?! reviews the media stereotype
We’d object more strenuously if they weren’t so funny. Here is a small selection of comedy of the HR kind from various sources:
Green Wings HR Director – Joanna Clore – unsteady, unstable and kind of unwanting object of doctors affection staff liaison officer – Sue White, who deals with the complaints and concerns of colleagues by belittling and unsettling them with bizarre sexual posturing; Human resources joke