Business Readiness Competencies

This article discusses the different competencies required for business readiness, including self and other awareness, independent thinking, confidence to express oneself, leadership, resilience and mental toughness, knowledge application, curiosity and forward planning, achieving results, team working, and business awareness. The article provides examples and personal experiences to help students understand and improve their competencies.

Student Name: ____________________________________
Student No: _______________________________________
Year of Study: ______________________________________
Personal Tutor/ Business Readiness Tutor: ____________________________
Competency AGT’s comments and signature
Self and Other Awareness Self And Other Awareness
Self awareness is the ability to monitor one's positive
and negative factors. I was unaware of the fact but when my
tutor conducted a group activity in which we were ten

members and each one have to pick up the chit and tell about
others strengths and weaknesses. So, when each one was
telling about my both the factors I came to know that my
strengths include that, I am creative and have ability to
achieve my goal which I have regarding my career, I am self-
conscious towards my ethics and values and also quick
learner for any new work given to me. On the other hand my
negative part made me aware of the things which I have to
correct in me like, I fear about failure of any project, I
sometimes take things personally and more of the time takes
time in involving to some activities. So with that activity I
came to know about my good and bad which made me aware
about the things I was completely unknown to. Being known
to the factors will help me to go for the further opportunities
in a professionalized manner.
Independent Thinking Independent Thinking
Independent thinking is the ability to have your own
thoughts and depend on the own judgement, having own
views to guide yourself. There are numerous ways to help
one to develop the independent thinking skills. With the help
of the activity conducted in the school I also developed my
skills of thinking. I can see the results that how I became not

only the good thinker but also a leader. I gained self-
confidence and the quality to learn from my past mistakes as
they will build my successful and knowledgeable life. I
started reading other peoples thoughts which encouraged me
to expose my own. I am being able to think for myself like,
how to take care of someone or how to maintain physical
health and to stay safe. I consider talking with the people of
different age, gender and of political and socio-economic
level. With travelling to different areas and culture
connecting with different people, my mind enhanced my
experience level. I focused on giving respect to the people
and activities happening all around and experienced various
things from which I gained knowledge. I got the challenges in
between but with my skills I overcome with that.
Confidence to Express Oneself
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Confidence To Express Oneself
Self confidence is the ability to believe in our own
positive factors. By knowing my strengths during the school
activity my confidence level reached to its peak point. I feel
like doors are opened for me to reach toward my set goals, I
came to know that one have to take risk to be successful in
the work he desires for. I will express my creativity whenever
get chance to show. I became motivated by knowing that

what people assume looking at me. I am having a thought of
“I can do it” rather than “I cannot do it”. I think that we
should develop positive self-esteem within us as a person.
Reading with books and various articles also encouraged me
to be aware the curios and complicated things. I feel
confident about my every action of learning, writing or
exploring. Being specific and genuine with approval is also
important. The positive comments increase our confidence
level. I first seek the information as a beginner and then try to
reach toward it confidently. So, my unknown facts to which I
was newly known provided me with increase in my confident
level.
Leadership Leadership
Leadership is the ability to have the skills which we
have to use while having challenges in reaching towards
goals. By listening to other peoples strengths in the activity I
have concluded that I have to practice discipline as a good
leader needs to be disciplined in oneself first. I should take
more projects and gain knowledge on that so as to develop
my leadership skills. Some of the habits I am having already
which a leader needs are: Be a good listener, resolve
problems, keep learning and inspire others. These habits are

healthy to have for a leader. Leadership qualities also
includes with learning to follow the information and making
it understand to the persons to put a clear path to reach the
goal. I gain knowledge and is working hard to achieve all the
required skill's leader should have. Whenever any task is
provided to us, I always encourage others in that with my
positive attitude. I always takes the responsibility for
providing the better results of any project or task. I always
listen to others suggestions and then come to the final
outcome of any work by working hard on it. I am trying best
to develop more leadership qualities in me.
Resilience and Mental Toughness Resilience And Mental Toughness
Resilience and Mental toughness is the ability to face
mentally tough and resilient situations and challenges and
respond to it with high confidence. I was not known that I am
having this ability or not but, when my tutor gave me one
report and its deadline was within 20 days. I distributed that
project into parts to complete it in 20 days. But after 2 days
my tutor told me that I have to submit that report in one
week. I was completely blank at that time and was not
confident about the completion on time. That time I was
having mental toughness and was in fear. But somehow I

build confident in me and set an aim that I can do it, I gave all
my time and thoughts to my project and completed it
successfully. On the last day of the project making, at one
point I was again having mental stress but when I did it I was
very much satisfied on my own. I got to know that I am
having the capability to work on any given task within the
provided deadline. It encouraged me to give my presence in
more tasks.
Knowledge Application Knowledge And Application
Knowledge and application is the ability to make
decision and then perform the given work through paying
attention on it, or to reach to the goal of the critical problems
by giving its results. Like when I was given deadline of
project that I have to complete it within one week I was not
understanding that from where should I start. Then I decided
to distribute each of the part in four-five equals with the fix
time limit. I was totally paying attention on gaining
knowledge about that report and to perform well in the
provided task on time. At one point I was having problems in
the report and not getting the way to process it, then I

researched a lot on that topic and finally after giving all my
efforts I found the solution and was successful in completing
that report. While completion of the report I came across
many facts to which I was not known to before and after
completion I was known to the in-depth information of that
topic. I gained many useful tricks and techniques to process
my work by applying the different rules.
Curiosity and Forward Planning Curiosity and Forward Planning
Curiosity and Forward Planning is the ability to
desire for opportunities to be knowledgeable and go through
different opportunities of learning. With the help of my
provided report which I have to work on, I went through
many of the useful points and then read about it a lot to gain
the in-depth knowledge about it. I planned for each and every
part that what kind of rules and techniques I will use while
the preparation of the report and then started processing it as
planned. Some of my plans for making the report took a little
more time and that stage I was little curious but then again I

overcome with my curiosity and came on track with my skills
and knowledge which I gained by reading and my
informative skills. I prepared the report with putting in all the
necessary information so anyone's doubt will be cleared
reading that. In the starting of the project, I planned to put in
all the useful information in simple and understandable
words. So the reader will not have to research again about
what is been mentioned in the report. Like this I gained the
ability of forward planning.
Achieving Results Achieving Results
Achieving results is the ability to achieve outcomes
of any task on the high standardized manner. Informing
others of the progress and unexpected delays while working
on any project. Having a plan of any project is not just
enough, it should have all the bases to be informative. I was
having one school project in which we were having group of
five members and the project was given to us. At that time I
discussed all my plans and informations which I am having
regarding the project topic with my team members to make it
flexible to cope up with rising challenges. One of the rising
factor that came towards the project failure was poor
communication. Therefore, it became more tough to ensure
smooth collaboration and good communication among my

team to achieve success of the projects target. As a result I
planned to find the effective ways that how we can process
the project all together in the systematic manner and then set
the time for all to have the meeting regarding the concepts of
the topic, with the systematic planning and everyone's
understanding our team won the project activity.
Team Working Team Working
Team working is the ability of an individual to
cooperate with the team members on any given task/project
and work altogether without the feeling of competency.
When I was working on a school project with my five team-
mates, I realized that working in a team needs patience and
nature of cooperation. We decided to have a meeting daily
regarding the topic and in that we used to discuss our views. I
was taking part in that activity with all my heart to complete
it on time and make our tutor proud on my team. Sometimes
our thoughts were not matching with each other, and we used
to have arguments, but at the end we all get the best results
out of that arguments. I was busy all the time researching and

providing useful bullet points for our topic and always gets
the appreciation from my team-members. At the time when
my group members appreciated my handwork I came to
know that I also have the ability to cooperate and work well
in a team too. This project encouraged me to be more patient
and calm while working in a team. Finding more information
by researching developed my knowledge skills also became
useful for my team.
Business Awareness Business Awareness
Business Awareness is the ability of understanding
what kind of activities are involved by the job, and skills and
knowledge needed to get success in these activities. In my
school I was given an activity to research about the topic
related to business. Firstly, I was not sure about what to write
and what not to, then I researched a lot about it, read the
write-ups related to topic and came to the conclusion about
each and every factor regarding that. I was having this
positive thinking that I am having potential to be successful
in this activity. While going through its different parts I came
to know more things about what's going on around the
business markets. Professionalism developed in me that how
to sit, talk and steps further in business environment. I often

had up to date knowledge and coverage of their sector on
their websites. Sector-specific journals can highly helpful. I
also got through applicable journals available for comments
at the Crees Service are catalogued on the summary page for
every unit of occupations at
www.ed.ac.uk/careers/occupations. I have gone through
many of the newspapers and websites which have sections
covering the specific industries.