In the second semester of school year 2012-2013, Jose Rizal University (JRU) pioneered a special training program for graduating students in partnership with LiveIt, a subsidiary of the Ayala Group of Companies.  An initial group of 81 highly-motivated graduating students from the College of Business Administration were chosen as the first group for the Professional Employment Program (PEP).  They met four half days a week in a specially constructed classroom and were taught by a highly trained faculty from LiveIt.  They completed the following courses: Business Communications, Service Culture, Systems Thinking, and Fundamentals I & II which are Sales and Technical Support.  They were also trained on Application & Interview Readiness for jobs.

This paper aimed to study the professional growth of Jose Rizal University (JRU) graduating students through the Professional Employment Program (PEP).

The results showed that all respondents had positive experiences with PEP, and used words like:  the program was worth the effort, effective, nice, great, very good, perfect, interesting, challenging, helped them a lot, extra ordinary and phenomenal, and the best program that they ever had.

Although they admitted that the program was difficult and that they failed many times, in the end they realized that they benefitted a lot from it through the help of their excellent, dedicated, and supportive mentors who brought out the best in them.