Personal and Professional Development

This article discusses the significance of personal and professional development for individuals. It includes a reflective essay based on Gibb's model, evaluating skill set and career ambitions. The article also provides recommendations for improving skills and abilities.

Personal and
Professional
development

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
Evaluation of skill set and career ambitions ..............................................................................1
SWOT analysis............................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................4
RECOMMENDATION .................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Personal and professional development are two important factors which leads to overall
success of an individual. Professional growth is defined as gaining new skills and expertise. This
means that development of an individual is related to current role and role which an individual
wants to perform in future. Professional development includes avoidance of stagnation in career
and future proofing an individual. When a person is expansing his or her skills beyond current
role, in this way he is getting prepared for more increase in value. Opportunities can enhance
career of individuals in a positive manner (Gamrat, and et. al., 2014). Personal development
helps other employers to be impressed by the way an individual is handling various situations.
Personal development activities include improving awareness and identity, developing talents
and potential , building human capital and facilitating employability, enhancing quality of life
and contributing to the realisation of aspirations and dreams. This is a lifelong process. This is
the way by which people can have assess to their skills and qualities. In the present report, a
reflective essay is presented that is based on Gibb's model. This includes SWOT analysis of an
individual an devaluation of his skills and abilities. Recommendations and conclusions are made
for improving abilities of the person.
Evaluation of skill set and career ambitions
Graham Gibbs has given reflective cycle model in the year 1988. This encourages people
to think in a systematic manner about their experiences they had in a particular situation, activity
or event. This makes people to think about experience, event and activity in a more detailed
manner (Moss, Gibson, and Dollarhide, 2014). The Gibbs model consists of various stages that
starts at descriptive and then continues to feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and this
cycle ends at action plan. The different stages and way by which I developed my skills through
these stages is given below -
Stage 1 Description
At this stage, I had to manage my behaviour towards a particular activity or event. As I
want to enhance my career in HR field so I try to put my efforts for learning HR management
skills. When I was doing internship, I dedicated myself to learn more about skills that will help
to manage personnel. This is stage where I grabbed information required for developing my
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career in HR filed. In is necessary for me to have clarified basics in human resource management
for developing my career in it.
Stage 2 Feelings
This stage includes feelings and emotions for what I am doing. This stage includes my
thoughts and views on my development. My skills and abilities are not enough to compete other
people in business environment. Fro developing good career, I have to keep myself updated
regarding new trends that arise in HR filed. I have participated in various seminars,
presentations and webinars in order to enhance my HR skills. These helped me a lot in
understanding concept of HR in better manner.
Stage 3 Evaluation
This is evaluation stage. Here, I have to evaluate myself on the basis of above two steps.
According to me, I have worked upon my weaknesses and tries to develop my skills. Today's
world is so competitive. Thus it is necessary for me to build strong and effective HR skills to
work effectively in organisations. I do not have good communication skills so I have to work on
it to improve myself (Olsen, 2015). This improvement will help to convey my message to
subordinates in an effective manner.
Stage 4 Analysis
In this stage, I have to analyse what are my learnings from past experience and how I
overcome different problems that faced me earlier. Developing career is not an easy thin for me.
I took lot of investment of time and money to build skills and career. Attending presentations and
seminars helped me to develop my skills. I used these in my working and contributing my efforts
in organisation's goals and objective. Not all experience was good. I have to face various
negative things while I was getting prepared to start my career in HR filed. As my
communication skills are not good, the biggest challenge in company was to talk to other people.
Overall my experience was good and I learnt different skills that will help me in future.
Stage 5 Conclusion
At this step, I have to look at various alternatives which I could have been chosen to
enhance my skills. As I chose to develop my career in HR field, it is best thing for me. I had
other choices too such as starting my career in marketing field. Now I realise that I have taken
the best decision as I like working in HR department. I have developed communication skills
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and interpersonal skills while attending seminars and presentation of HR. now I think I have
become capable of managing and handling all activities related to human resource.
Stage 6 Action Plan
This is defined as final stage of Gibb's model. In this stage, actions are developed for
future situations. In the above stage, I have promised myself to enhance my career in HR filed.
My intentions are pure and I have to grab success as a human resource manager. I have to
expertise in this (Prosek, and Hurt, 2014). It will help me to prove myself. This will provide
both personal as well as professional development to me. Action plan which I have includes
implementing my learnt skills and abilities in the way I am working in the organisation.
SWOT analysis
Strength Weaknesses
I have good management skills and I had HR
as specialisation in management. I have
experience of working in HR department and
by seniors always appreciated me for my good
work. I can manage business activities
effectively and can complete tasks given to me
within specified time frame (Ramia, and et.
al., 2016). Also, the ability of providing clear
and fair direction and managing other people
will help in performing tasks and operations
appropriately.
I am not able to handle and manage my
personal as well as professional life effectively.
It is not easy for me to work in situation where
I have to perform multiple jobs. That is why I
am not able to manage daily activities and
tasks appropriately.
Opportunity Threats
I have wide opportunity in HR sector as there
is requirement of HR expertise in new start-ups
as well as multinational corporations.
There are different threats which I face in HR
job profile. It is challenging for me to develop
effective strategies for employee management.
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CONCLUSION
It has been concluded form the above discussion that all individuals must be talented and
skilled (Van Aalderen‐Smeets, and Walma van der Molen, 2015). This enables them to perform
organisational work in a better manner. I have concluded that if I want to succeed my career, it is
essential for me to have good analytical skills and communication skills. These will help me to
tackle all major and minor activities that I have to deal with daily. Seminars and presentations
have helped me to develop skills that help me in building expertise in my career. I have analysed
my strengths and weakness by using SWOT analysis. This has helped me to know what are the
different ways I can use to develop my skills. Building my career in HR filed is my dream and to
complete it, I have to adopt different abilities. Leadership is an aspect which I lack and according
to me, it is also required to enhance your career. I have to become a good HR manager and for
that I think leadership is also important. I have wide scope of opportunities for building my
career in HR filed. I just have to focus on adopting new trends and learning new techniques of
HR management.
RECOMMENDATION
Personal development is a long term process and this is a way for individuals to assess
skills and qualities, consider objectives in life and set goals for maximising potential of myself.
On the other hand, professional development is defined as development of skills and abilities that
a person possess in order to sustain in business for longer time. As per my views, I think I have
to work more on analytical skills. An effective professional development consists of ensuring
knowledge and understanding area of expertise for career is at priority. Professional
development of mine must have included formal types of vocational training that leads to career
related qualification. A good and positive workplace environment provides employees to put
more efforts in their work. Organisational goals and objectives are attained more easily when
people have good knowledge and skills. As I want to accomplish my career in HR filed, it is
recommended for me to think about what are the skills in which I have to improve for
developing my talent and potential to work effectively. To be successful in my working, I have
to add some beneficial skills in myself for staying ahead from other employees. If I am able to
establish skill that is needed for succeeding in my job role, there is no hurdle in my success.
This affects skills which are useful for managing and handling daily activities and business
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activities. For developing my career in HR, I have to learn new skill everyday for enhancing my
future.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Gamrat, C. and et. al., 2014. Personalized workplace learning: An exploratory study on digital
badging within a teacher professional development program. British journal of
educational technology, 45(6), pp.1136-1148.
Moss, J.M., Gibson, D.M. and Dollarhide, C.T., 2014. Professional identity development: A
grounded theory of transformational tasks of counselors. Journal of Counseling &
Development, 92(1), pp.3-12.
Olsen, B., 2015. Teaching what they learn, learning what they live: How teachers' personal
histories shape their professional development. Routledge.
Prosek, E.A. and Hurt, K.M., 2014. Measuring professional identity development among
counselor trainees. Counselor Education and Supervision, 53(4), pp.284-293.
Ramia, E. and et. al., 2016. Mapping and assessment of personal and professional development
skills in a pharmacy curriculum. BMC medical education, 16(1), p.19.
van Aalderen‐Smeets, S.I. and Walma van der Molen, J.H., 2015. Improving primary teachers’
attitudes toward science by attitude‐focused professional development. Journal of
research in science teaching, 52(5), pp.710-734.
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