According to a 2007 HR Executive Census conducted by Human Resource Executive^®

magazine earlier this year, there was life (or at least another career) before HR.

As the story "Legal Eagles in HR" points out, it's not very common for HR executives to come from legal. Still, there's a good chance they haven't spent their entire careers in human resources.

Of the 623 HR executives surveyed by HRE, 361 said they came to the profession from other fields. Here are the most common areas of origin:

Line management: 22 percent

Marketing/sales: 13 percent

Finance: 11 percent

Communications: 5 percent

Procurement: 4 percent