As students of MSc Human Resource and Industrial Relations, we have recently had the chance to attend the annual HR Conference organised by the university. It's an event to which a couple of HR professionals from various companies are invited and students are given the opportunity to network. This conference was compulsory as a part of our CIPD membership and happened over the span of 2 days.
During our first day, we attended an introductory presentation and met a few recent HR alumni. It was really nice talking to students who had finished their studies at the university, listening to their experiences and seeing which path they took afterwards. A lot of my classmates asked about CV tips, certain career opportunities or advice for writing our dissertations. At the end of our first day, we were divided into groups and we were given an HR case study that we had to work on for the rest of the day, as we were to present on our second day.
The case study was a real-life scenario about a clinic that faced recruitment issues due to the shortage of talent, low retention rates, high-stress levels of employees due to Covid and Brexit as well as more general admin problems. Our task, in the role of HR Consultants, was to identify the company's main challenges and come up with possible solutions. My team and I created a presentation as well as a poster describing the company's values and got ready to present our ideas to the HR professionals the next day.
Day 2 came around quickly and there were altogether 8 groups presenting. Everyone's ideas and presentations were really impressive and insightful. In my opinion, it was a great group exercise where we had to put our theoretical knowledge into practice and work as a team to reach our objectives. Sometimes it can be difficult working in a group since everyone comes from different places with different mentalities and thinking processes, however, I think it's really important to do such exercises every once in a while to be able to cooperate with everybody else.
Anyway, after the presentations, there was again time for some networking whilst we had food and drinks downstairs in a café in the AMBS. Overall, it was a really good experience that helped us all connect with professionals as well as other classmates, learn a few more skills and gain more confidence.
