Career Planning and Portfolio Development

This document discusses career planning and portfolio development, including personal branding, informational interviews, and cover letter writing. It also includes a resume adjustment and references for further reading.

Running Head: CAREER PLANNING
Topic-Career planning and portfolio development
Student name
University name
Author notes

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PORTFOLIO ASSIGNMENT
Part A
Talk on Personal branding
“Pleasure meeting you”- my name is Valbona Dumi. Currently I am pursuing my diploma course
in Business Administration from George Brown College and in the final year. I have completed
my B. Sc in Dental Technology in 2007 and thereafter completed my M. Sc on Science of
Stomatology in the year 2013. I have a good career history of a dentist as well as a dental
technician and have full anatomy and layering technique knowledge based on clinical
procedures. Though my work experiences are basically related to dental clinical procedures but I
have good knowledge of Microsoft office tools and is well versed with Word, Excel and
PowerPoint tools. I can speak English, Greek and Albanian as well. Recently I have joined
10,000 Coffees for increased career opportunities and have a real-world proficiency of job
market. Adding to my strengths of resilience and time management, I have good interpersonal
skills and is high on emotional quotient and empathetic behavioral outcomes. And I am looking
forward to increase my administrative and management skills and like to join management
consultancies to have better corporate world knowhow.
Information interview is a brief meeting of the candidate/ job seeking individual with a strategic
positional person of a company or any desired field (Nguyen et al., 2014). The candidate is
responsible to fix such interviews and clarify all doubts and enquiries in relation to the job
profile and the organization as well. Asking for the job is not encouraged as it is not a job
interview (Fakis et al., 2014). This type of interview provides the exact direction and outcome
for career paths, choosing the right organization and selecting the best industry suitable for the
candidate (Beausaert et al., 2013).
Probable 5 questions I would like to ask in the informational interview are,
 What are the typical entry level job roles in your organization?
 What are the future prospects of this occupation?
 How is your company culture?
 What educational qualification do you need while recruiting people?

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 If I have different genre experience would it be considered while recruiting for the
job role?
The first question is important for me as I am looking for entry level job role in business
management a genre different from my previous work experiences. I need to start from the
basics. I have experience in dental clinical practice and is well versed with the current job trend
there but I have little or no experience in business and customer service management, so I need
to have an outlook of the future prospects of the jobs in this profession. Culture is one thing I
emphasis the most, good corporate culture lead to overall development of both professional and
personal well beings. I strongly support cultural intelligence in organizations. My educational
background is diverse and I am basically from science background, currently pursuing business
administration degree. So, I need to know whether my diverse qualifications would affect my
recruitment there or not. Same reason is applied for my experiences as well. I need to validate
whether my educational and experience credentials will be favored for management job role or
not.
Recently, I have registered in 10,000 Coffees where I was introduced to a number of alumni of
George Brown college and discuss about career opportunities, present job market trend, meet up
in person and can also chat online if required. First, I filled my credentials like mid-career
professionals in dental career and services, then I selected career advice, resume critique and
meet new people option in Connect Café that I would like to share. After that I was added to
George Brown community to strengthen relationship building and networking. Then I was
connected to a number of people and conversation was encouraged. In this way every four week
a new match is encouraged either online or offline meeting. This approach increases both
interpersonal and management skills and provide a good knowledge of real-world career
opportunities (Hirschi, Herrmann & Keller, 2015).

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Part B
Career Goals (documents support)
Table of contents
1. Transcripts
2. Program outline from school calendar
3. Professional work experience
4. Resume
5. References- from professors and employers
6. Awards certificates diplomas
7. Volunteer work
Portfolio demonstrates the various skills and areas of expertise of the candidate (Lent, 2013). It
helps in supporting experiences mentioned, refer to the original results of accomplishments,
show and support the candidate’s real-life struggles and challenges faced (Philbrick &
Cleveland, 2015). Hard copy of the e-portfolio should be developed and kept in professional
manner documentation. Generally difficult questions asked during interviews are backed up by
the portfolio supporting examples (Van Teijlingen, 2014). STAR strategy needs to be adopted
and extra copies need to be carried to the interview. The merit page should be highlighted to grab
recruiter’s attention easily.
After having the job in business is not the end of portfolio usage. It is of most useful during
performance reviews and employee appraisal. The manger can be approached to consider the
new joiner’s creditability and then decide upon the performance review (Ward & Yates, 2013). It
is also helpful during salary negotiations and promotional requests. And it is helpful in future job
interviews as well. So, keeping the portfolio updated is essential to have the maximum benefit
from it.

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Part C
Cover letter
Valbona Dumi
Address
Contact information
February 26, 2019
John Smith
HR Manager
Staples Service Centre and Copy Centre
Address
Re: customer service job # 18-038
Dear Mr. Smith
I hereby attach my updated resume as an application for the post of customer service
executive, the job advertisement dated February 20, 2019 in your company website. I believe
my caliber will best fit this job role and I value your company culture of ‘commitment to
excellence’ and gets aspired to be a part of your esteemed organization.
I am currently in my final year of completing the diploma degree in Business Administration-
Human Resources in George Brown College. I have gained a complete knowledge of various
HR principles and policies including compensation polices and have completed a number of
group projects under the course curriculum till date. I have very good communication and
person handling skills and my diplomatic behavior will be an added advantage in the role of
customer care executive.
Previously, I worked as a dental technician and also as a dentist, but now I have shifted my
preference to business and corporate world and would like to start from the basics. One thing I
have learnt from my experience is patience and client handling skills which I think will add to
my job fitness for this role.
I am very excited about this job role here and would like to hear from you to the earliest.
Thank you for your valuable time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Valbona Dumi
………………

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Resume adjustment
Valbona Dumi
Address
Contact information (phone number& email)
Objective: Customer care executive position at Staples Service Centre and Copy Centre
Qualifications:
 Have almost 7 years of experience in dental clinical services and worked as dentist and
dental technician for years. This experience has increased my patience and client
handling skills.
 Expertise in using the basic Microsoft office tools and have good computer proficiency
 Have fair knowledge of various Canadian labor laws and other HRM policies and
procedures.
 Can speak and write multi-languages like English, Greek and Albanian. This increases
diversified cultural communications.
 Have both team support work experience and individual experience in performing a
task
Educational background:
Business Administration diploma program-human resources (present time)
George Brown college; Toronto Canada
B. Sc in Dental Technology
Technological Educational Institutions of Athens, Greece. 2007
M.Sc. Degree in Science of Stomatology
Albanian University, Albania. 2013
Experiences:
● Dental Technician, Aug. 2010 - April 2017 Valbona Dumi, Albania Self-employed, Albania
● Dental technician 2008-2010
Pressable ceramics, veneers, crowns, bridges. DR. Luan Mavriqi Brianza dent, Albania
● Dental Technician, 2005 – 2008
Full anatomy modeling & porcelain layering AestheticLab Nondas Vlachopoulos,Greece
Greece
● Dentist June 2015 - April 2017 Valbona Dumi, Albania, Self-
employed Albania
● Dentist June 2012 - June 2015 DR. Matilda Molla Albania

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References
Beausaert, S., Segers, M., Fouarge, D., & Gijselaers, W. (2013). Effect of using a personal
development plan on learning and development. Journal of Workplace Learning, 25(3),
145-158.
Fakis, A., Hilliam, R., Stoneley, H., & Townend, M. (2014). Quantitative analysis of qualitative
information from interviews: A systematic literature review. Journal of Mixed Methods
Research, 8(2), 139-161.
Hirschi, A., Herrmann, A., & Keller, A. C. (2015). Career adaptivity, adaptability, and adapting:
A conceptual and empirical investigation. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 87, 1-10.
Lent, R. W. (2013). Career‐life preparedness: Revisiting career planning and adjustment in the
new workplace. The Career Development Quarterly, 61(1), 2-14.
Nguyen, L. S., Frauendorfer, D., Mast, M. S., & Gatica-Perez, D. (2014). Hire me:
Computational inference of hirability in employment interviews based on nonverbal
behavior. IEEE transactions on multimedia, 16(4), 1018-1031.
Philbrick, J. L., & Cleveland, A. D. (2015). Personal branding: building your pathway to
professional success. Medical reference services quarterly, 34(2), 181-189.
Van Teijlingen, E. (2014, December). Semi-structured interviews. In PGR Workshop December.
Ward, C., & Yates, D. (2013). Personal branding and e-professionalism. Journal of Service
Science (Online), 6(1), 101.

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