Example Human Resources Postgraduate Personal Statement
The human resources department is now an essential part of every major corporation in every industry. The importance of HR management has increased dramatically over the last few decades as the emphasis on the welfare of employees has increased. From taking numerous courses organised by HR departments in my career, I was greatly impressed by the work of HR managers and decided that, given my interests and skills, I would like a senior role within HR management. The MSc in Human Resources Development and Consultancy will give me the necessary academic knowledge to fulfil my ambition.
My work experience has already helped me develop many of the requisite skills for my career and the degree. From the age of eighteen I was supporting myself with a variety of customer-facing roles, from customer service in a restaurant to reception and secretary work at a busy fitness club and one of the most popular radio stations in my native Poland. Thanks to my hard work, I gained more senior roles with more management responsibilities, first as a store supervisor for a major retailer in Ireland and then as a bar supervisor in a busy London pub. In the roles, I was given responsibility for recruiting and training new employees. The experience convinced me that I have the requisite interpersonal and management skills to excel as an HR manager, which made me even more determined to achieve my career goal. Recently, I had a golden opportunity to exercise my management skills when I worked in a supervisory role in one of the largest outsourcing companies in Poland.
I am particularly good at motivating people to perform better in their jobs and I greatly enjoyed taking courses organised by HR to improve my management and interpersonal skills. I would like to develop these skills further by learning more of the theory behind organisational psychology in the HR Strategies module of the degree so that I may draw on the wealth of research to better understand and motivate employees under my supervision.
Apart from the wealth of work experience I have amassed, I also have a strong academic background that ensures I am academically prepared for the course. I successfully completed a BA in International Relations and European Integration, in which I performed particularly well in a number of HR-related subjects, including Employment Policy, European Social Law and the European System of Human Rights. The courses taught me about the rights of employees and the duties of employers, which I always keep in mind to ensure the rights of my employees are respected.
On the degree, I also took courses in Philosophy, Mathematics and English that equipped me with essential critical thinking and writing skills that should stand me in good stead for writing essays and a dissertation as part of the Masters.
Outside of the work place and the classroom, I have been preparing myself for the degree by reading books on HR and organisational psychology. I particularly enjoyed Dave Ulrich’s Human Resources Champions, which emphasises the importance of theory and research for effective HR management, and popular sociology books, including Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, which describes the requisite conditions for outstandingly successful work. I should like to organise a book club with fellow students so that we may read relevant texts outside of the classroom and create a mutually supportive study environment.
When not reading or working, I love to spend most of my time with my two year-old daughter. Caring for a child is a full-time job in itself, which means I have to be organised and manage my time effectively to juggle caring with my career, a skill that should be of great use in the degree.
The degree appeals to me greatly, not only because it will equip me with the requisite knowledge to become a specialist in training and development, but also because the curriculum will satisfy my wide-ranging intellectual curiosity and intense interest in psychology and human relations.
We hope this example Human Resources postgraduate personal statement will provide you with some inspiration when writing your own unique personal statement.