Employability Skills Course: Know Yourself and Your Strengths

This course explores the importance of self-awareness and understanding your strengths in the context of career development. Through journal entries and reflections, students will delve into theories like the Gallup Strengths theory and constructivist learning theory, applying these concepts to their own career aspirations. The course aims to equip students with the tools and knowledge to identify their strengths, leverage them for career success, and navigate the challenges of the job market.

Employability Skills Course 1
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Contents
Journal Entry 1...........................................................................................................................3
Know Yourself...........................................................................................................................3
Identify what you consider to be some of the key aspects of the Gallup Strengths theory.......3
Reflect on a minimum of three of your strengths......................................................................3
How can you apply these to achieve your career aspirations?...................................................4
Journal Entry 2...........................................................................................................................5
Know Yourself...........................................................................................................................5
Critically appraise two of the theories from this module (are there any flaws?).......................5
Journal Entry 3...........................................................................................................................6
Know Yourself...........................................................................................................................6
Reflect on how you can apply elements of these theories to your future career development?
How will you own them?...........................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7
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Journal Entry 1
Know Yourself
Identify what you consider to be some of the key aspects of the Gallup Strengths theory
This theory enables an individual to transform ideas into actions. This enables the individual
to improves one’s judgments and understanding process. This will allow me to improve my
performance while fulfilling my duties. The problem with this theory is that it doesn’t lay
downs a concrete process to fulfill the objectives of the individual. This means it helps in
improving the understanding process but fails to address how the individual will do it. This
reduces the effectiveness of the Gallup Strengths theory. This leads to the problem of
execution. Apart from this, the theory will improve the functioning of the candidate (Smith,
2013).
Reflect on a minimum of three of your strengths
I have a number of skills which will allow me to perform my duties effectively. The
aforementioned qualities make me different than other candidates and allow me to assist the
firm in fulfilling its goals and objectives.
Learner
I like learning a new skill and at the same time, I am a fast learner. This enables me to learn
new skill effectively and complete the duties assigned to me Additionally, the training time
required to learn new skills will also be less and this will enable me to start contributing to
the organization as soon as possible.
Achiever
I am able to achieve the goals assigned to me in an effective manner. I am able to fulfill my
duties in the time specified. This skill will allow me to perform my official duties in an
efficient manner.
Optimist
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I am an optimist if I am assigned a difficult task I take it with optimism. This enables me to
take this as a challenge and ensure that the firm is able to fulfill the goals. This also enables
me to handle stressful situation and perform my duties effectively even in the case of crises.
How can you apply these to achieve your career aspirations?
My career aspiration is to be in a managerial position in the company. My skills of optimism
will enable me to handle the work pressure, the learning skills will ensure that I am able to
contribute to the organization as effectively as possible and the archiving skills will enable
me to achieve the goals I have been assigned These skills will enable me to contribute to the
organization’s success (Getz and Page, 2016).
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Journal Entry 2
Know Yourself
Critically appraise two of the theories from this module (are there any flaws?)
The constructivist learning theory is based on a belief that says an individual should regularly
learn new concepts to improve her performance on the job. This enables the individual to
continuously read new concepts so that she may be able to increase her contribution towards
the organization. The individual can learn new skills using the books, material supplied by
the company and internet. This helps the individual to improve his behavioral and cognitive
skills, which will improve the performance of the individual on her job.
It will allow the individual to learn those skills in which the individual is deficient. This will
ensure that the individual is able to perform her duties as per the organizational rules and is
able to perform them as effectively as possible. By learning new skills, she can improve her
performance and increase her contribution to the organization. This theory also treats every
individual separately and modifies the approach of teaching new skills as per the individual’s
learning ability. This ensures that every individual is able to benefit from the use of this
theory. This maximizes the learning ability of the individual and ensures that the individual is
able to learn new skills form the use of the constructivist learning theory (Bada and
Olusegun, 2015).
The Gallup strength theory is based on a belief which is that every individual has a different
level of skill set. By adjusting the learning theory as per the individual will enable her to
maximize her learning ability. This theory uses positive psychology that means the benefits
of positivity, an optimistic attitude, happiness, spirituality, and satisfaction of the individual
while performing her job. This enables the individual to perform her job in the organization
effectively and focus on work rather than personal and organizational problems. The focus of
theory is on feelings and personal emotions of the individual and its effect on the
performance of the individual. This theory focuses on thirty-four themes that include
achiever, realtor, ideation, etc. which will assist them in predicting her distinctive talent
(Smith, 2013).
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Journal Entry 3
Know Yourself
Reflect on how you can apply elements of these theories to your future career
development? How will you own them?
This theory will allow the individual to develop her potential and improve the overall
performance of an organization. These theories can be used in a number of situations in the
organization. They will allow the individual to improve her skills. They will allow the
individual to improve his ability to face crises and challenges in the career. The constructivist
will enable the individual to develop her knowledge and skills and this will allow her to
handle a number of organizational situations effectively. Further, they enable the individual
to develop her strength and resilience that will enable the individual to face crises in the
organization. They will also enable to understand the behavioral talents of the individuals.
They further improve the communication in the organization and enable the individual to
contribute towards the effective functioning of the organization.
They further assist in solving the problems faced by the organization and develops flexible
learning skills of the individual. This allows the individual to make decisions using the
flexible learning techniques, they further assist the individual in improving their social skills
which improve the interaction among employees and improve their performance. Finally, it
can be said that the use of these theories will improve the function and the performance of the
individual in the organization (Patton and Mcmahon, 2014).
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References
 Bada, S.O. and Olusegun, S., 2015. Constructivism learning theory: A paradigm for
teaching and learning. Journal of Research & Method in Education, 5(6), pp.66-70.
 Getz, D. and Page, S., 2016. Event studies: Theory, research and policy for planned
events. Routledge.
 Jones-Smith, E., 2013. Strengths-based therapy: Connecting theory, practice and
skills. Sage Publications.
 Patton, W. and McMahon, M., 2014. Career development and systems theory:
Connecting theory and practice (Vol. 2). Springer.
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