Human Resource Management PgDip: After you graduate

"After completing my degree I continued to carry out my labour coordinator role in McVitie's United Biscuits in Harlesden, London, that I had been doing while studying. The main part of the job was to provide sufficient labour to meet production needs by managing people properly alongside their contractual position and making sure policies and local procedures are followed. The biggest highlight of the role was maintaining a good work relationship with about 130 employees based on firmness and fairness.

I now work as a training coordinator in McVitie's United Biscuits in London. I provide training support for over 530 employees; deliver training activities, evaluate training needs on site, build training budget and action as per training plan and maintain training consistency across the whole business.

Completing the course did not help me directly to obtain the new job. My previous job experience was the main attribute. However, the course helped me a lot to understand my role. I was able to sit at the national training coordinator forum, without previous experience in this field, with people who have been doing this job for years and I knew what they are talking about. I was also able to actively participate because I have the knowledge and confidence in myself and have now practised talking in front of a group of people!

The course helped me to understand the position human resources (HR) takes or should take in a well-functioning organisation. On the course we had about nine different subjects, however, they were all very much linked with each other so that the knowledge gained from the organisational behaviour subject, for example, was applied to the next subject module and so on. You built up your knowledge progressively and by the end of the journey you knew that the HR function can be very powerful and can have a huge impact on the whole organisation.

I decided to study at Kingston as it is one of the few courses accredited by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and I wanted to get 'two in one' – a Human Resource Management PgDip and to a CIPD evaluated level. The fact that the campus was local to my home and there were convenient transport links between my work and university was the second aspect that made me decide to apply to Kingston.

I found the course very challenging, especially as almost all my peers had some kind of previous experience in working in HR and I just had an aspiration to work in HR but it was very stimulating and I learned a lot from my peers.

I must say as a group we were very organised. The first thing we did was to exchange our email addresses, writing down our names and the company we work for – it was very helpful! We still keep in professional contact via email, to send/receive job offers, ask for help, advice etc. Socially, I keep contact with two friends from the course and each time we meet up is always very productive – like the way we used to meet to revise but this time it is less stressful!"