CIPD quals - old vs new? - HR Qualifications and studying - Careers Clinic

11 CIPD quals - old vs new?

Anka | 0 Posts

26 Sep, 2017 16:34

Dear Forumites

Having obtained my "Postgraduate Diploma" back in the mists of time (2002 if memory serves), I often come across references to today's qualifications, levels 3, 5, 7 and so on and have no idea how they compare/relate to each other. I was job hunting last year and was rather miffed when I lost out on one interview because apparently I did not have "level 7."

How do the old qualifications compare to the new ones? Pleased to say that I'm once again gainfully employed but just wondering for future reference!

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Ray | 0 Posts

26 Sep, 2017 16:53

Ditto for mine at the LSE in 1979....
:-)
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Catherine Haycock | 0 Posts

26 Sep, 2017 16:56

Hello Anka
Your old PostGrad Diploma is the equivalent of the level 7. In fact, if you didn't have this, you wouldn't have gotten Chartered Membership unless you did the Experience Assessment route. I question the previous recruiter knew what they were talking about if they didn't twig that a Chartered Member equals a level 7!
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Anka | 0 Posts

26 Sep, 2017 19:02

In reply to Catherine Haycock:
Thank you both, Catherine and Ray. I hoped it might be equivalent.

Ray, I am in awe of you attending LSE. I picked a course for the simple reason that I was on half day release and could get to the particular uni (which usually scored about 110th place out of a league table consisting of 105) on the 65 bus. Always regretted this as very limited networking opportunities/ability to learn and share with other students, a large number of whom did not work in HR.
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Jacqueline | 0 Posts

29 Sep, 2017 22:26

As I understand it (and I'm prepared to be corrected) a Level 3 roughly corresponds to an A-Level standard, a Level 5 is roughly a degree level standard and a Level 7 is about a post grad standard.
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Steve Bridger | 0 Posts

Community Manager

29 Sep, 2017 22:59

In reply to Jacqueline:
Pretty much, Jackie. L5 is foundation degree level (i.e. year 1 & year 2 of a degree).
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Ray | 0 Posts

29 Sep, 2017 23:58

In reply to Anka:
Anke, I had the privilege of being one of Nancy (baroness) Sear's last intake in 1978. She was an awesome character who changed people's visions of what HR can do for a company, and with Keith Thurley and David Guest on the team she laid strong academic foundations with incredible business links - for me it was half a day a week with BP observing what HR meant in the real world.
It was that positive experience that pushed me to be an external lecturer for Intetnational HR MBA programmes so that I could try to put back into the system a little of what I got out of it - it also forces me to keep learning so that I can keep pace with my MBA students who are probably much brighter than me, too!
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David | 0 Posts

30 Sep, 2017 04:39

In reply to Ray:
What an absolutely wonderful and unique experience, Ray!

(Being a bit more ancient former student (but sadly merely at the Regent Street Poly), I very well remember a former schoolmate who was on what must have been the same course as yours but c. 1970, taking me one evening into the student union bar at Houghton Street, and pointing out the most distinctive figure of Robin Blackburn holding forth in the corner, surrounded by a very big and motley / colourful group of student disciples. Pictures of this guy stared out just about daily from the front pages of all the London papers at the time, so it was absolutely fascinating to observe the source of all this at such close quarters - and past those notorious heavy steel gates recently put on - and torn off! - the LSE's main doorway.)
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Ray | 0 Posts

30 Sep, 2017 08:15

In reply to David:
There were times David when I had to pinch myself to believe it was real - Jack Jones was on a sabbatical that year and many lively debates took place with him over a pint at the Beavers Retreat (students union bar).
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Steve Bridger | 0 Posts

Community Manager

2 Oct, 2017 14:50

Anka... see what you did there? You've taken Ray and David down memory lane...
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Ray | 0 Posts

2 Oct, 2017 15:19

In reply to Steve Bridger:
The problem is, Steve, that as time goes by our memories are fading... :-)
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Steve Bridger | 0 Posts

Community Manager

2 Oct, 2017 15:26

In reply to Ray:
It's like a voluminous library where these old tomes of memories get pushed further and further back to the periphery... until someone (often younger) asks to borrow it and they get dusted off...

Magic really.
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