How can one get into HR?

They migrate to an HR Generalist role or stay in the silo of Talent Acquisition climbing the ladder. Only larger companies or staffing agencies can support a full Talent Acquisition departments

There are three main areas of which someone starts in HR.
1) Recruiting
2) HR Generalist
3) Trainer

Recruiters typically start out as Recruiting (or Talent Acquisition) Coordinators supporting Recruiters and then move into a Recruiting role. Then they migrate to an HR Generalist role or stay in the silo of Talent Acquisition climbing the ladder. Only larger companies or staffing agencies can support a full Talent Acquisition departments. This is how I started in HR. My first job was Staffing Specialist at a local bank.

Entry-level jobs as HR generalist—do everything in HR—tend to be new grads (Bachelor in business, communications, psychology or something similar) or lateral moves from jobs like Office Manager where the person touched HR in addition to other duties.

Trainers tend to have a completely different start typically along the lines of education. Trainers and professionals in Organization development/Training and development, tend to have advanced degrees. Most of the leaders in this field hold PhDs.

There are other roles in HR, like compensation and benefits (or Total Rewards); however, these individuals are numbers/statistics/regression analysis types of individuals and rare breeds in HR. I’ve been told by a few Compensation Consultants that they do not considered themselves to be HR people.

Of course these are general ways. I’ve seen Directors of Operations move into Director of HR roles as the request of their leaders. However, not that often.