What does a good HR career actually look like in your 40's?

The first half of a career has a roadmap. The second half doesn't.

We talk endlessly about the first half -- getting your foot in the door, proving yourself, climbing the ladder, taking on stretch assignments, just generally doing “more.” The first half of a career is loud.

It has big milestones like promotions, role changes, stellar performance reviews that tell you you're on track.

But somewhere around 40, something changes. The goalposts start to feel less clear and the milestones start to feel repetitive. For a lot of senior HR women, a question starts to surface that feels almost embarrassing to admit out loud:

"Is this still what I want?"

Not "Am I good at this?" You know you're good at it. You could do this job in your sleep.

Not "Do I earn enough?" You are well paid and you know it.

The question is more fundamental than that. It's: "Does my career still work for my life?"

The second half looks different

If your career started in your early 20s, you're somewhere in the middle of it by the time you hit your 40s. And the second half -- roughly 40 to 60 -- tends to look very different from the first, for reasons that have nothing to do with ambition or capability.

Your life has changed.

Maybe you have kids who are old enough to have real needs -- school pressures, mental health challenges, the kind of parenting that requires your presence. Maybe your parents are aging and the phone calls have started to weigh on you. Maybe you've watched a friend or a colleague go through something that reminded you that time is not unlimited.

The things that motivated you at 28 (the title, the international travel, the seat at the table) may still matter. But they're competing now with things that didn't used to exist on the list. Sleep. Weekends. Being home for dinner. Not being on call at 11pm for a restructure in another time zone.

This is a recalibration that’s completely rational.

The ladder was never the only option

A traditional career narrative assumes that a "good" career always moves upward. Typically, moving up means more: more responsibility, more visibility more travel and more of your life absorbed by the role.

For some women, "more" is still exactly what they want at 45, and that's legitimate. But for a significant number of senior HR leaders that I work with, they don't want more. They want different.

Case in point - the 2024 Global Human Resources Census (which surveyed 650 HR leaders globally) found that only 43% of female respondents aspired to become CHROs -- compared to 55% of male respondents. Many women in senior HR roles have looked at what the top job requires and decided that it's not the trade they want to make.

Redefining what "good" means

A good HR career in your 40s might look like a CHRO role at a company whose mission you actually believe in. It might look like an HR Director position with a reasonable scope and a leadership team that genuinely values the function. It might look like a fractional CPO engagement across three growing businesses. It might look like stepping back from a global role to take a regional one that keeps you in one time zone.

The women I work with who are happiest in the second half of their careers stopped measuring their careers against a roadmap that was never designed for their actual lives. They got honest about what they actually needed -- not what they were supposed to want.

That process is not always easy, especially for HR leaders. Your entire professional identity is built around being the person who helps other people navigate their careers. You run the talent reviews, you design the frameworks, you sit across from people who are stuck and help them find clarity. So when you find yourself in exactly that position – it stings. You're supposed to know how to do this.

The reality is that the skills that make you effective at supporting other people's careers are different from the skills required to advocate fiercely for your own. And the emotional labor of carrying everyone else's career anxiety leaves very little room to sit with your own. 

Doing this work requires untangling your identity from your job title, having conversations that feel vulnerable, and tolerating uncertainty while the new shape of things becomes clear. The women who do that work all tell me that they wished they had started asking these questions earlier.

The question nobody asks you

It might be worth asking yourself, “What would a good career look like for the version of me that exists right now -- with this life, these responsibilities, these priorities?

You don't need to blow up your career to answer it. You don't need to hand in your notice or reinvent yourself overnight.

Not the you of ten years ago. The you of today.

The answer might surprise you.

I work with female senior leaders in Human Resources who feel stuck to help them love their work or find work they love. I write about:

👂 Executive & career coaching

📄 Career development and career transition

🎯 Job search strategy

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