Human Resources Student Stories:
CIPD Student Stories: Heather Donaldson | CIPD Level 3 Review

From recruitment to HR, Heather gained her CIPD Level 3 Foundation Certificate in People Practice, keen to start off on the right foot in the People Profession. Read her story below. 

Hello! My name is Heather, and I am currently working as a People Operations Specialist for my company Sibling. Sibling is a small technology recruitment agency based in my hometown, London.

Before my career in HR began, I had previously worked in Recruitment. As a recruiter, I was regularly interacting with various HR Departments on a near daily basis, collaborating with them on roles and getting to know them over the phone. I was interested in their role and responsibilities as I knew that it was people oriented, and as a people-person myself I believed this would make me succeed in a HR career.

After leaving my recruitment role- I began looking for Junior HR positions in order to help me begin my career in the field. I was very lucky to come across my current company and applied for an integrated Recruitment and HR position. In my job interview, I expressed to the managers that I was highly interested in getting a HR qualification to help me to progress and learn more about HR. They were very much on board with this and agreed that they would provide the funding to complete a CIPD Qualification- in order to invest in me as an employee. Safe to say when they offered me the job I didn’t have to think too hard about accepting!

Once I started, me and my manager got to researching courses straight away as I knew the qualification would take me a few months to complete. There were a lot of course providers to choose from- and at first it was hard to know which one to go with as the options seemed endless.

We then came across ICS learn, and after giving them a call (and speaking to the very friendly lady on the phone) I knew that this was the course provider I wanted.

I started the course straight away and got to know my Tutor-Adeola through the seminars and message boards.

She was very helpful and always got back to me in a timely manner. This was helpful as there were time constraints on me as I was balancing both the course and my full-time job. However, due to how flexible the course is, I was able to get into a good flow and schedule for completing my work.

The course took me about 8 months in total to complete and I am very happy to be receiving my CIPD Level 3 qualification very soon. This is hopefully the start of a successful and long career in HR for myself, and thanks to ICS learn I have been able to begin my journey and learn so much about the field.

I would 100% recommend ICS Learn to a friend as the course is well structured and flexible and the Tutors and wider community as super helpful and encouraging.

If you're like Heather and making a career switch, gain the globally recognised CIPD Level 3 qualification with ICS Learn today.