CIPD / HR qualification

[HRcareer]

Hi, wondered if there were any HR professionals on here who could advise?

I have worked for my employer for years, various management and leadership roles (mid level) and am currently in HR in a temporary role supporting with huge amount of onboarding we have going on (large uk company).

Anyway, I've made the decision to leave due to long working hours and lack of flex / home working. I'd ultimately like to find a job that is 4 days a week with more flex to fit around my family life.

To get this balance, I'm looking at team manager roles, but also considering taking time out, maybe 6-12 months and re-training, or at least adding additional strings to my bow! an option being CIPD level 5 or even 7 to open up HR specialist roles. Does anyone know if this can be done whilst not working? All the info I've come across is aimed at people qualifying whilst working alongside. My background is operational management with the last 6 months in my current HR role. I'm currently earning 43,000

I also wondered about taking an HR admin role as a stop gap - do roles come up where the employer will cover my cipd costs?

Any pointers would be much appreciated. Thanks

Optimistic bump for the evening crowd 😁

Following as my dd who has just left university is looking at going into hr and is unsure which route to take. Has applied for a master in hr but being advised it’s not worth doing

CIPD is one of those situations that can get a bit circular - you need it in order to progress above a certain level, but it’s difficult to get the most from it without ongoing related work examples.

In your situation OP, I’d look for a part-time HR related role, or take a few temp roles in that field. They might not fund your CIPD, but they will make your qualification a lot more useful as you’ll have a chance to apply the knowledge as you go along.

I would probably suggest doing level 5, and then looking for a role that would later sponsor your level 7 (it’s really tricky to get a first senior role in HR when you have a level 7 but no senior experience - the real life skills of interpreting the ideals are so important).

@Alfiemoon1 I probably agree that a masters in HR with no experience is not going to be the springboard into a higher level HR role at the end of it. Your daughter may well find she ends up taking entry level HR roles with or without the masters, but if it’s really the field that interests her, she could expect to progress fairly quickly once she has a foot in the door. She could always do a masters later while working, once she knows what kind of HR interests her the most (learning and development, industrial relations, generalist, etc etc).

I've got level 5 and 7. My degree was unrelated but I had 20 years' business leadership experience when I started the cipd and wanted the theory to add to practical experience.

I can't imagine how I'd have done most of the assignments without the practical side to draw on.

I'm not sure you'd find the admin side of things that rewarding for long but it might be worth looking into doing a single module of organisation design (if you still can - I did in London with cipd in 2019 before covering the rest) and considering that route. It's really interesting.

I've been working on Level 5 CIPD on the L&D side, and am nearly finished, it's been tricky working alongside getting the qualification finished (well, just the research project bit, the rest of the papers have been fine really).

They aren't as difficult as a degree programme, I don't know why the Level 5 is compared to an undergraduate and Level 7 a Master's, but I do agree with the need for practical, real world experience in order to complete the assignments.

I'll probably move on to Level 7 eventually, if my career progression requires it of me, but at the moment I need to buckle down and finish the bloody research project for L5.

(It's definitely helped my career, people do think highly of CIPD quals when job hunting)