Six recruiters made history on 10 July by receiving the first-ever bachelor's degrees in recruitment practice to be awarded by Middlesex University.

The Middlesex degree programme in recruitment, believed to be the only one of its kind in the UK, was lead by Anna Kyprianou, dean of Middlesex's business school.

Heather Clay, associate dean for academic development at the university's business school, who worked with the students on research skills, told Recruiter: "All of their projects were very different — just fantastic projects. They were related to their own working environments, with very different priorities."

One of the graduates, Amardeep Panesar, said earning the degree marked a special achievement as he had previously begun a degree course at Middlesex but dropped out before completing it.

Panesar, a recruitment consultant for Wimbledon-based IT recruiter and management consultancy the DP Group, enrolled on the course in 2005. His degree project involved developing a DeeDee Doke90-page training manual for new starters at DP Group.

"It's been very interesting and challenging doing both recruitment and the academic side of things," he said, adding: "I'm hoping we can implement [the training manual] when we have a new starter."

Also graduating were: Steven Bentham-Bates, Sarah Lewis, Consuela Sackfield, Timothy Thresher and Susan Trafford.