Anyone who thinks that Human Resources is all about administration and staff support is hopelessly behind. HR has grown into a strategic pillar that helps both the organization and its employees to make a sustainable transformation. If you opt for a master's degree in HRM, you choose a special career path in which you can help make a difference for people and organizations alike. The only condition is that you start your journey well prepared. At AMS we will provide you with the right luggage and mindset to give you a flying start.
Volatile, uncertain, complex & ambiguous: VUCA perfectly sums up today's baffling world. How do you deal with all cultures within an international company? How do you create team spirit when people hardly see each other face-to-face anymore? How can you as a company win the war for talent? How do you prevent burnouts? These are just some of the challenges for which organizations have come to depend on Human Resources. And rightly so, because HR can deliver high added value. New-style HR, that is. Human Resources that does not focus on 'resources' as in the past, but that puts 'human' back at the center.
Peggy De Prins is Academic Director of the Master in Human Resource Management at AMS and, together with her colleagues, has helped to bring about innovation in HR thinking: "HR today has a unique and key role to play: connecting people with organizations so that both parties come out stronger. We fully prepare our students for this connecting role. We start from the individual employee, but always reach out to the broader context of the organization and society as a whole. Within organizations we not only look into HR for example, but we also zoom in on finance and strategy or on anything that has to do with change management and organizational development. When it comes to society as a whole, we for instance dive into stakeholder management. So, we don't take a blinkered view, but we explore HR in all its aspects and effects. This striving for connection, this synthesis between human and business, is very much in the DNA of our program, which makes us quite unique."
With our master’s degree in HRM you get a great head start in your career."We not only apply this synthesis approach to what we teach but to how we teach. We make sure that our students not only absorb knowledge but get to put it into practice too. This makes us stand out from purely academic master's programs and gives our students a real head start in their career. Thus, we organize a one-week residential bootcamp in which students are immersed in consultancy skills by business experts. They have to work on a real-life case and pitch the results in front of a professional jury by the end of the week. Toward the end of the academic year, students also get to actually work in in a company for eight weeks, where they have to tackle an HR challenge. It’s like the icing on the cake for them. Their self-confidence gets a real boost, and they are well-prepared to stand out on the job market.”
AMS alumni excel at quite a variety of jobs, according to Thomas Marynissen, Manager of the FTM Career Center: "We see two major trends: students who end up in a specific HR role, either internally or externally (consultancy), or students who take up a broader management position. Job titles vary from HR Business Partner, Learning & Development Advisor and Human Capital Consultant to Change Advisor and Organizational Developer.”
"These are very different positions, but then, that is what makes our master’s program unique: our students get introduced to both typical human resources and broader organizational thinking. Compared to other starters, they come very well-prepared, with an open mindset and a strong network thanks to the many contacts with international peers, faculty and entrepreneurs. And that combination really pays off in their careers, both in the short run and the long run."
"It’s safe to say that Return on Investment is high, both in terms of objective and subjective career success. Our alumni often start from a better and more challenging entry position with a corresponding salary. What’s more, we see that after only two or three years they’re able to swiftly move on to the next step in their career. This is where our master's program really starts to pay off. But it’s not only the hard return that matters, subjective career success is key as well. Thanks to our Master in HRM, our alumni have a better understanding of HR and the business world and of their own skills and abilities. As a result, they more quickly end up in the jobs that really suit them, so they start excelling in these jobs, earning recognition and getting in turn new opportunities to learn and grow. It’s like a real upward spiral, initiated by what they learned with us at AMS."