Denise Slevin is a recent graduate of the CIPS Professional Diploma in Procurement and Supply course offered by CMI. She has spent the past three years at CMI completing the CIPS Diploma, Advanced Diploma and has now become the first student in Ireland to successfully complete the CIPS Professional Diploma in Procurement and Supply.

Denise originally signed up to the CIPS diploma course to help further her interests in the procurement sector. She was originally working in a freight transporting role at the start of her course but had a desire to move into the procurement sector. It was a shock to her just how quickly an opportunity to secure such a position would come along.

CIPS Award

 

Around the end of Denise’s diploma course Dawn Meats had sent a job advertisement on to CMI to see if any of their students would like to apply for a procurement position. After CMI distributed this offer to student’s Denise jumped at the opportunity and with her interest in the field and new qualification in hand she was successful at getting a position at the firm.

 

While speaking to Denise she emphasized the importance of having your employers support to do a course. Dawn Meats helped support Denise to move on to the CIPS advanced diploma where she was able to develop upon the procurement skills she had gained from her diploma course. She pointed out that each new CIPS course developed upon the skills learned in the last and that they all used the same tools but that each new modules helped redevelop the skills she had previously learned.

Denise had nothing but kind things to say regarding her lecturers giving particular praise to Turlough Kieran who was always responsive to emails and queries and provided a “great sense of calm” when it was needed. Regarding textbook materials she still uses the books she obtained from all her CIPS courses today as they act as useful reference materials at her job.

Commenting on the qualification Denise pointed out that “Procurement can support any function” and that it doesn’t “Pigeon Hold” you into particular projects but rather gives you transferable skills which can benefit many other departments in reaching their objectives. When asked what she plans to do next Denise stated that she had been accepted onto a Procurement Master’s program at the University of South Wales!

It’s clear that Denise is an ambitious woman who will keep on striving to reach her goals. It’s been CMI’s pleasure to have her as a student and I personally would like to wish her the best of luck in all her future endeavours.