Personal Insight: Career in Finance and Action Plan

This report presents personal insight and an action plan for a career in finance. It discusses goals, skills, and reflections, as well as teamwork analysis and improvements.

Running Head: Personal Insight 1
Personal Insight
Report
Student Name:
12/28/2018

Personal Insight 2
Executive summary:
This report is to present my personal insight and critically analyze my career in finance. This
report includes the goals and action plan of the career. This report will examine the requirements
needed for the achievements of future goals. Finance is the job cluster that I have selected for my
future.
This report focuses on the goals for next twelve months and to achieve those goals I have
planned my action plan. In this action plan, I have included my personal soft skills and my
technical skills that are required in this field. I have also mentioned the reflection towards the
goals for the next twelve month in finance. After my action plan, I have created a professional
brand that includes my competency profile. This also includes the reflection on my professional
brand. I have also mentioned the analysis of my teamwork, and how I have contributed in the
teamwork, this further includes the teamwork management style and the feedbacks from the team
members.
Contents

Personal Insight 3
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................4
Action Plan:.....................................................................................................................................4
My Professional Brand:...................................................................................................................6
My Competency Profile:..............................................................................................................6
My professional brand reflection:................................................................................................8
Benefits of developing an online professional profile:............................................................8
My team:..........................................................................................................................................9
Analysis of teamwork:.................................................................................................................9
Improvements needed:.................................................................................................................9
Analysis of my role as a team member:.....................................................................................10
My teamwork style:...................................................................................................................10
Contribution I made in the team:...............................................................................................11
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................11
References:....................................................................................................................................12
Appendices:...................................................................................................................................13

Personal Insight 4
Introduction:
This report focuses on the job cluster that is finance. It consists of my personal insight with the
future action plan aims and the steps to achieve my goals (Ahmed, 2010). I always wanted to be
an accountant or something in financial field since the age of twelve. My dad has been my
inspiration as my father run a corporation very successfully. Future is unpredictable and being an
accountant o financial advisor will be a huge achievement of my life.
Finance is selected job cluster (Yin & Kaynak, 2015). Some important transferable skills could
be technical and personal soft skills that are required in the finance job cluster. Finance is a
widely spread job cluster and it consists of other professions too. In addition, by this report I will
aim on my action plan where I will include my developed skills and experiences with my team.
This report also consists of my competency profile where I discuss about my paid work
experiences, achievements and volunteering activities. My professional brand reflection is also
discussed along with my team review towards me as well as towards themselves.
Action Plan:
Employment goals for next twelve months:  I want to get a job as a financial
accountant in some top organizations.
 I want to develop good relationship or
networks in the organization.
 I want to be a financial planner.
Personal soft skills:  I am good with my communication
skills (DOYLE, 2018).
 I am enthusiastic towards my work.

Personal Insight 5
 I am empathetic towards personal as
well as professional relationships.
 I have good emotional intelligence,
which is required in any professional
field.
 I have some good cultural intelligence
as well.
 I have great time management skills.
 I always think critically.
 I have creative thinking skills.
Technical skills:  I am good with data base management.
 I am a bookkeeper.
 I am good at event management skills.
 I have great work experience in social
media campaign and can analysis it
well.
 I am also good with customer care
services (DOYLE, 2018).
Reflection:  I chose these specific actions as my
employment goals as these are my
dream job and I want to achieve these
goals.
 I am a team player and hence I am good

Personal Insight 6
with challenges as I can cope with my
teammates easily and lead the team
with no hurdles in between the work.
 These employment goals can be
achieved by the changes in handling
others by implementing the logic first
than reacting towards a person’s
emotions.
My Professional Brand:
My Competency Profile:
Photograph: Summary statement:
 I am doing my Bachelors of commerce
and this is my final year of graduation.
 I have work experience as a consultant
at an insurance firm and I have worked
as a consultant at a financial institution.
 I have volunteered at a day care center.
 My interests are in law, philosophy,
psychology, finance and public
administration.
Information about paid work  I have worked as a consultant at an

Personal Insight 7
experiences: insurance firm.
 I have also worked as a consultant at a
financial institution.
Key achievements and skills:
 Ability to be compatible in a team
 Analytic personality
 Negotiating skills
 Understanding of business and financial
markets
 Commercial awareness
 Good decision-making ability even in
under pressure.
 Giving attention to the small details
Capabilities I have developed:
 Communication skills
 Customer servicing
 Team work
 Professionalism
 Results-orientation
 Quick learner
Volunteering activities:  I have volunteered in a day care center.
Key achievements and skills:
 Volunteering connected me to the other

Personal Insight 8
people in the day care center.
 Communication
 Leadership
 Patience
 Empathy (Randstad, 2015)
Capabilities I have developed:
 Basic childcare duties
 Administration abilities
 Cleanup and maintenance
Relevant achievements:  I have been good with my consulting
skills, as I have worked with my dad in
his business.
 I have also managed the accounts
department as well.
My professional brand reflection:
Benefits of developing an online professional profile:
 It helps in generating credibility.
 It is helpful as it improves chances of gaining customers (Yu, 2016).
 It is benefited in a way as it offers a reminder of our outstanding achievements in the
business.
 It gives a chance to show the creativity to the world.
 The online profile tells about our professional narration in a compelling way.

Personal Insight 9
 It helps in potential clients visualize working with us.
 Demonstrates consistency (Forbes, 2017)
I have gained value from having an online profile and received its benefits in my career (O’Hara,
2012). While creating the video, I received feedback from my teammates on my Competency
Profile and video is that it is overall great but I have improve in the quality of the video and work
on more the information and the sources I am using in the video.
My team:
Analysis of teamwork:
Experience of working with my team members was good. As everyone cooperated with each
other and respected each other’s idea and the method of work. Everyone had different perception
and opinions on the same work. Listening to everyone and taking each other’s idea and using the
ideas were a difficult task (New, 2018).
Improvements needed:
 Our team needs to be good with the communication skills, to be more clear and specific
about the roles.
 Listen to each other more often and respect each other’s idea.
 Exercise together.
 Work on the rules and regulations made for everyone in the team.
 Clarify the purpose of the work.
 Appreciating the differences between the team members is one of the most important
improvements needed (Price, 2018).

Personal Insight 10
Analysis of my role as a team member:
 I have tried to help my team members and include their opinions in the work.
 I have made them feel comfortable to talk about the issue they face in the team or to talk
about the communicational problems if any.
 I have tried to be compatible with everyone, learned about different ideas, and gained
knowledge working with them.
 I have also focused on the strengths and weaknesses of the team members.
 I have showed gratitude towards my team members, accepted the differences, and tried to
make a lead and work as a team.
My teamwork style:
 My team members have difference in between each other but they participate in the work.
Hence, the teamwork style is participative management style as everyone seeks efforts in
a team and then the decision-making process takes place. This management style makes
the team members feel more valued towards each other. This style is also great as it
supports the notion of teamwork as the collaboration and conflicts resolution is important
in a team and is emphasized (Reaves, 2018).
 My team members also work in the affiliate management style as well. As this is the
style, where the team work in harmony and encourage open communication and
collaboration (Cottrell, 2015).
Contribution I made in the team:
 I helped the team members to create the action plan and achieve the goal.
 I helped in making the video profile where we had to convey ourselves to our future
potential employers.

Personal Insight 11
 I cooperated with the team members and implemented the ideas or changes they
provided in my competency profile.
 I contributed my ideas and achieved a good response from them.
Conclusion:
From this report, we conclude that, finance is a job cluster and in this personal insight, I have
discussed about my action plan on achieving my goals. I have discussed about my work
experiences and volunteering experiences as well. I have worked with my dad in his business and
looked after the business and I am hugely inspired from it. I always wanted to be in finance or be
an accountant. In this report, I have explained in details about my personal soft skills and
technical skills. My goals are clear for next twelve months and I have all the necessary details
required to accomplish my goal.
From my GAP, I have already discussed about my academic interests, my values that is
hardworking, being confident, honest, and creative, and a good team member. In this report, I
have discussed about the feedbacks I have received from the team members and tried to work on
it. I have also discussed about my team and analyzed the teamwork, improvements that are
needed in the team, analyzed my role in the team and contribution that I made in the team. I also
mentioned the teamwork style of my team. I have created my competency profile and discussed
the reflective about the professional brand.
References:
Ahmed, A., 2010. Global financial crisis: an Islamic finance perspective. International Journal
of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management, 3(4), pp.306-20.

Personal Insight 12
Cottrell, S., 2015. Skills for success: personal development and employability. 3rd ed. Palgrave
Macmillan.
DOYLE, A., 2018. Soft Skills List and Examples. [Online] Available at:
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/list-of-soft-skills-2063770 [Accessed 3 january 2019].
DOYLE, A., 2018. Technical Skills List and Examples. [Online] Available at:
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/technical-skills-list-2063775 [Accessed 3 january 2019].
Forbes, C.C., 2017. Nine Advantages Of Developing Your Own Professional Portfolio. [Online]
Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2017/10/19/nine-advantages-
of-developing-your-own-professional-portfolio/#e3d4d5925198 [Accessed 3 january 2019].
New, P.-M., 2018. An analysis of the concept of teamwork. Springer, 4(4), pp.326-33.
O’Hara, J., 2012. Building an Online Profile to Benefit your Academic Career. [Online]
Available at: http://www.scwist.ca/building-an-online-profile-to-benefit-your-academic-career/
[Accessed 3 january 2019].
Price, H., 2018. 12 easy ways to improve workplace teamwork. [Online] Available at:
https://blog.jostle.me/blog/12-easy-ways-to-improve-workplace-teamwork [Accessed 3 january
2019].
Randstad, 2015. cv template for a childcare worker. [Online] Available at:
https://www.randstad.co.uk/job-seeker/career-hub/archives/cv-template-for-a-childcare-
worker_863/ [Accessed 3 january 2019].
Reaves, J., 2018. How Management Styles Impact Teamwork. [Online] Available at:
https://www.jeannereavesconsulting.com/how-management-styles-impact-teamwork/ [Accessed

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3 january 2019].
Yin, S. & Kaynak, O., 2015. Big data for modern industry: challenges and trends. Proceedings of
the IEEE, 103(2), pp.143-46.
Yu, J., 2016. 5 Benefits of Creating an Online Portfolio. [Online] Available at:
https://prosky.co/careerbuzz/articles/5-benefits-of-creating-an-online-portfolio [Accessed 3
january 2018].
Appendices:
GAP Analysis
Critical skills required in
industry
Critical skills that I have What this means for my
career readiness
Good communication skills I am a good communicator This implies that I perfectly
feet in the market
Creativity I can be creative when need be This implies that I really need
to work on my creativity skill
and be much more productive
when need be
Teamwork I am a very good team player This implies that I can be an

Personal Insight 14
asset in the market
Negotiation skills I am not a good negotiator This means that I need to put
some more effort on my
negotiation skills and make
myself more proactive