James's story

With over a decade of HR experience in the retail sector under his belt, James had risen to a senior position within the Tesco People function with responsibility for a team of 200. But he didn’t have any formal professional qualifications and believed CIPD accreditation would help his self-development and boost his credibility, opening doors to a wider range of career opportunities.

In 2018, with the encouragement and full support of his line manager, James embarked on the Experience Assessment route to become a Chartered Fellow. Juggling the process with a demanding day job required a rigorous approach to time management and the scale of the case study element was initially quite daunting.

James found the opportunity to ‘really reflect’ on past things he has done in his career very beneficial and this has influenced the way he thinks about and approaches new challenges. ‘In this day and age we are moving so quickly – especially in retail, it’s super-fast – unless you really force it, you don’t have the luxury to think back.’

The support of colleagues in the cohort going through the process was ‘amazing’ and led to some good networking and sharing of advice. James also felt that as he was seeking to gain accreditation ‘arguably quite late on’ in his career, he was setting a positive example to more junior colleagues about the importance of CIPD qualifications.

‘When I speak at an event, I say technical skills are really important,’ says James. ‘They can be underpinned by the CIPD, and that gives you credibility for the job that you are doing.

‘Being a Chartered Fellow is a nice thing to say. It’s a badge of honour, that bit of pride. In terms of the recognition of achieving a certain level within the profession, it means a lot.’

To find out more about becoming a CIPD People Development Partner, get in touch with the team by emailing ClientDevelopmentEnquiry@cipd.co.uk