Centre for Business

Typically, when people think of Human Resources, they think of just hiring and firing people. It's because I've never fired anyone in my life.  My name's Paul Koshy.  I studied at George Brown from 2006 to 2007,  and I did the post-graduate HR Management Program.  I researched a few schools,  but my decision was mainly based on word-of-mouth.  A friend of mine entered the program the year before,  and she was already working. So that was a big selling point.  How fast was I going to find a job.  Co-op is sorta one of the biggest elements in any one of these post-grad programs.  I think a lot of folks who do them are sort of looking for a job right away, afterwards.  They had a real focus on building those relationships with employers.  I did my co-op at the Metropolitan Hotel in downtown Toronto.  I spent about five months there, working as their HR Coordinator.  and it was an incredible experience.  I got all the, you know, real world skills and hands-on experience that I could ask for.  Then once I finished there, I actually decided to buy a one-way ticket to Dublin, Ireland,  and I managed to find a job in HR there.  I was a training consultant for an investment bank. I got to experience a different working culture.  When I got to the bank, they were just building the training team. A lot of the skills that I had learned at George Brown during my program were very transferable, and I was able to sort of build a position for myself, and sort of get all this experience that I needed, that I knew I needed when I came back. My favourite class was Labour Relations at George Brown.  It was taught by Don Chiro.  He had a, just a wide background of experience in terms of labour relations, and he really brought that to the forefront. All of his examples, and all the cases that we did, he either had some real first-hand experience with, or a similar case. It was all something that he was very knowledgeable about, and could answer all of our questions. And we did sort of mock tribunals and arbitrations and stuff like that. We were practising what we might actually do in the real world, as if we were working for an organization already and expected to do things. But that really prepared you for when you actually had to do it on the job. The program really opened my eyes as to what's out there  in terms of a career in HR. In university, you sort of have three or four years to complete your degree, but this is literally about eight months. So, it's a really, really intensive program. So it's something you really draw on, once you're working. And it, that pays off in the end. And it's something you take to your job.