In reply to Nina Waters:

When I did mine (2003 - 5) it was an optional unit for the PG Dip...

So I'm relatively old school on here - I studied my CIPD PG Dip in 2003 - 5 alongside my first HR Administrator job. (I worked for the University where I studied so yes it was fairly jammy but also it didn't cost my employer much). In response to Nina's query - employment law was an option on mine (I didn't take it as it sounded boring and I did Equality and Diversity instead).

I seem to recall most of the units being fairly theoretical but mine did have some practical elements:
*as part of Recruitment and Selection we devised interview questions, practised interviewing and scoring candidates on each other;
*as part of Learning and Development we devised a training session, practised it live on each other and evaluated it (mine was napkin folding!);
*We had a couple of residentials each year which had other practical elements (lost in the mists of time!)
*we did an extended management project each year (my second year I focused on induction and re-designed my organisation's induction programme as a result);

So although the majority of our marks were coursework based, there were definitely some practical pieces to embed some skills. For me, being a newbie in HR I was learning about some processes (such as appraisal) which I hadn't actually experienced in the workplace. I also learnt some vaguely related stuff such as basic accounting which I didn't apply until much later on in my career...

I went onto do a top-up MSc in HRM later at a different Uni (more prestigious) and for that I did an extended research project on trust and change (I got a CIPD prize for that!). That course had more business strategy units and less practical elements.

It's an interesting topic and I think there is a disconnect, like many qualifications, between this one and what jobs/professions need.

Completely agree Charles !

Hi there, I'm enrolled in a level 7 CIPD qualification and so far have completed 3 modules. 2 of the 3 were brilliant - immediately useful in my day to day work in strategic HR and the assignments were transferable as reports I was required to do at work. Strong and repeated messaging about aligning HR strategy, policy and procedures to business needs, strategies and objectives considering external and internal drivers. I really like how the modules connect and paint a picture of how a host of factors should influence day to day HR from operations through to strategy - ideally creating a continuous and seamless flow from business strategy. The module that was not as useful was because of the quality of the lectures. The actual course design and module learning outcomes were really good - just let down by the lecturer. I found getting used to referencing tricky in the first assignment but that has actually been a very useful exercise too in terms of report writing at work and the standard of my work has improved because of this. I have done some day courses for more operational/informational content and attend networking groups too to get hands on feedback from other professionals as I wasn't expecting that sort of content in a post-grad qualification. A lot probably comes down to the institution and the lecturers. All the best