Planning for Professional Development: Student Assessment Submission and Declaration

This project report covers various skills and skill audit along with SWOT analysis so that it can help in individual’s career development. It also covers experience of individual and capability along with opportunities in professional development.

Student Assessment Submission and Declaration
When submitting evidence for assessment, you must sign a declaration confirming that the work is
your own.
Student name:
ESL ID No
BSU ID NO
Campus
Submission date:
Module name and code Planning Your Career in Business (BMAF008-20)
Assessment No 1
Title / Topic
A professional portfolio comprising a personal statement, completed
application for a volunteer/work experience placement with a relevant C.V.
and a skills development action plan.
Lecturer’s name
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Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a form of cheating. Plagiarism must be avoided at all costs and students who break the
rules, however innocently, may be penalised. It is your responsibility to ensure that you understand
correct referencing practices. As a university-level student, you are expected to use appropriate
references throughout and keep carefully detailed notes of all your sources of materials for the
material you have used in your work, including any material downloaded from the Internet. Please
consult the relevant unit lecturer or your course tutor if you need any further advice.
Student declaration
I certify that the project submitted is entirely my own work. I fully understand the consequences of plagiarism.
I understand that making a false declaration is a form of malpractice.
Student signature: Date:
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4
No Table of Content Page No
Section A:
- A brief introduction to indicate what the portfolio contains and the reason for both the
personal statement and the CV that will be presented.
- You may also want to consider writing a short overview of the chosen organization in a bid
to justify your peculiar interests in working in such a place.
1. Introduction 3
1.1 Overview of the chosen Organisation 3
Section B:
- Personal statement in support of your application for a volunteer/work experience
placement in any organization of your choice.
- A detailed CV that has been carefully designed to fit purpose.
2.0 Personal Statement to support your application 3
2.1 Detailed CV 5
Section C:
- Self-assessment reflecting skill gaps (SWOT Analysis inclusive)
- Action plan tailored towards your skill development (reflecting SMART objectives)
3.0 A personal SWOT analysis 7
3.1 Personal Skill Audit 8
3.2 SMART objectives for skill development (short-term, medium/long-term
career objectives)
9
Professional Development Plan and training 9
4 Conclusion 10
5 References (Harvard System only) 11

A professional portfolio comprising a personal statement, completed application for a volunteer/work
experience placement with a relevant C.V. and a skills development action plan.
Section A:
1. Introduction
Career planning is very crucial for future aspect of an individual. It is important for individual to
plan for career in order to accomplish professional goals (Belser and et. al., 2018). It helps in
providing direction by which individual can see himself as great personality in near future. There are
various skills required in career development because of the strong competition in the current job
market. This project report will cover various skills and skill audit along with SWOT analysis so that
it can help in individual’s career development. The job role selected for this professional portfolio is
HR intern. This project report is based on Morrison, fourth largest supermarket chain of UK. This
project report will cover various aspects associated with career development such as professional
portfolio along with combination of examples. It will also cover experience of individual and
capability along with opportunities in professional development.
1.1 Justification
The main reason for choosing this organization because of the value that it contains in comparison to
other companies I have chosen this company as it is well known supermarket and I want to explore
new opportunities in this market. I want to pursue my career in Human Resource field and this
company can provide with opportunity. Also I can gain valuable information about HR intern job role
along with its roles and responsibilities. HR is an interesting career field because it is people centric
and continuously evolving job role (Kooij and Boon, 2018). I have chosen this company as it is well
known supermarket and I want to explore new opportunities in this market. In addition to that, I have
keen interest in this field since childhood and want to pursue my career with this organization. I can
boost up my CV by doing job in Morrison. There are various growth promotion opportunities lies in
this company and offers high salary packages along with incentives and other perks. The justification
for choosing the role of HR intern is that it does not require any prior experience and will support me
gaining relevant skills and knowledge for succeeding in the HR field. In addition to this I will also
become aware about the daily HR level job responsibilities and functions. In addition to this the job
role of HR intern will enable me to find more lucrative growth opportunities in the field weather it is
skill development or growth through job change.
Section B:
2. Personal Statement
A personal statement can be referred as summary which involves information and details about an
individual and his ability regarding job (Chetana and Mohapatra, 2017). By drafting my personal
statement, I can showcase my commitment and enthusiasm and can add value to company’s
operation.
I am keen on making the HR field my future profession and succeeding in this areas starting
with the job of HR intern at Morisons. I am interested in the field of Human resource management
because it is considered the backbone of any modern and successful organizations. In addition to
this I have always been a people person and helping people achieve their best is a fulfilling act for
me. It is imperative for an individual to focus on improving skills so that career advantage can be
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taken (Zacher and et. al., 2019). I will be a great addition to the Morison’s team because I will use
my skills and knowledge to not only deliver quality outcomes on time but also support my
teammates in exceeding expectations of HR supervisors. Following are some skills which will make
me a valuable asset for Morison’s HR department as an HR intern:
 Communication skill- This skill plays an important role in every business organization and
will help me in communicating with internal and external stakeholders of company. With
this skill, I can able to share my opinions, information and deliver effective presentation. I
can also able to influence customer to opt product of Morrison. I can improve this skill by
regularly practicing with my colleagues. I am good communicator and will be able to
influence my teammates to achieve better results with my effective communication trait. It
is important to have this skill as it will help me in my professional career as an HR intern
and makes me more productive. I can take advantage of communication skill in my future
career for progression.
 Conflict management skills-As Morrison emphasise on teamwork rather than individual
effort, it will help me in working with my team mates effectively and achieve high grade
results at the role of HR intern. In addition to that, I can polish my conflict management
skill and can collectively work with team. I will take opinions from other team member and
acquire their knowledge. This skill can help me resolve conflicts so that day to day
operations can be implemented smoothly. Along with this, I have capability to catch all
knowledge and information from my team members. This skill I can showcase to next
employer and can grab opportunities.
 Problem solving skill- As business is full of uncertainties and it is important to resolve
problems as early as possible or it may negatively on company’s productivity and
profitability (D’Alessio, Avolio and Charles, 2019). With this skill, I can effectively solve
business as well as personal problems of my team members in order to enhance proficiency.
I will analyse root cause of problem and will try to solve in a best possible manner. This
will keep me on track of productivity and makes me more enhanced at workplace. In my
previous interview, I lack in this skill and at that time I decided to overcome form that
weakness and I started reading business case studies and tried to solve them. This approach
helped me in gaining problem solving skill and I am confident enough to solve problem in
an effective manner. At the role of HR intern at Morison I will use this skill to ensure that I
eliminate individual and team challenges quickly to complete tasks in given deadlines.
 Time management skill- This skill plays an important role in making an individual more
punctual towards work (Gregg, 2018). I have this skill and I can use time management skill
in completing task. It is important to have this skill so that individual can complete task
within prescribed time. For example, whenever I got some task with my team mates as an
HR intern, I will make a schedule and assign time to each task. This will help me in
prioritizing task and ensures that I have enough time to complete each task. In this I was
lacking earlier but I have practiced and enhanced this skill. With time management skill, I
can accomplish task within given time and makes project successful.
 Talent management skills: I have been able to develop talent management skills because of
my knowledge in the field of Huma resource management. Performing the role of Human
resource intern is stepping stone for excelling in the HR field and will help me enhance my
talent management knowledge and skills. I have good eye for identifying talented people
and individuals with potential to achieve excellence, provided suitable guidance. In addition
to this I am also aware of the process of implementing training and development activities
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for developing talent internally. This is essential for the role of HR intern as they have to
build organizational talent as per changing environmental needs.
2.1 CV
Curriculum Vitae
General information:
Name: XYZ
Father's Name: ABC
Mother's Name: KLM
Email ID: [e-mail]
Personal Profile
Accomplished, skilled, energetic and focused HR intern passionate about helping people
achieve their best and using technology to deliver strategic solutions for various HR
problems. Out of the box thinker with effective communication and problem solving skills
and potential to support the company in achieving industry milestones.
Core Competencies
 Business management knowledge
 Microsoft office knowledge
 Empathy
 Strong ethical values
Experience
Fresher
Skills
 Time management skills
 Conflict management skills
 Talent management skills
 Multitasking skills
Your career HR intern
List of your
Skills to meet
the career goal
Why those skills are important
Communisatio
n skill
Communication skill is important in my professional career as HR intern I can
effectively convey message to other individual (Ontrup, Schempp and Kluge,
2021). In addition to that, it is crucial to have this skill as I can easily influence
customers to buy product of company. I can communicate business plan with
my team members so that they can get clarity about roles and responsibilities.
This skill is crucial as it would aid in maintaining good relationship with HR
department team members and management and improves efficiency as well as
morale. Having effective communication skill is essential as it allows other to
understand in a better way. Whereas poor communication leads to frustration,
misunderstanding and sometimes disasters too.
Critical
thinking and
problem
solving skill
This skill is also important as it all helps me in identifying root cause and
finding best solution to solve business as well as personal problems (Wulandari
and Nurhayati, 2018). Adding to this, as business is full of uncertainties due to
dynamic business environment and it becomes difficult for company to attain
objectives with obstacles. So it is important this skill and many recruiters seeks
for candidates who possess this skill for the role of HR intern. I can take
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opportunity of this skill in my professional career and able to solve personal
and professional problems. Various problem arises within Human resource
management and it needs to take corrective action so as to minimise negative
impact of it. Further, company can operate its functions effectively by
eliminating Human resource management obstacles in way of success.
Time
Management
Skill
HR interns have to do complicate set of role which involves helping senior HR
manager in engaging employees, filling vacancies with talented employees,
managing workplace relationships, implementing training and development
strategies, looking after employee well-being, enforcing organizational change
etc. (Rehman and et. al., 2019). In addition to handling wide number of
challenging and complicated jobs, HR intern is also tasked with completing
various activities under specific deadline. Human resource management
activities such as filling an empty vacancy and systematically implementing
organizational change are time bound and HR intern has to follow the
guidelines of superiors in supporting completing of these activities. This aspect
of HR intern job increases the value and significance of time management for
this particular profession. Recruiters specifically search for individuals with
effective time management skills so that individuals who can calmly manage
the stress associated with deadlines.
Conflict
management
skills
The role of HR intern is people centric which means that HR department
employees have to deal with complaints, grievances and challenges faced by
the entire staff of the company (Aruldoss, Kowalski and Parayitam, 2020). In
this scenario conflict management skills are needed to handle different type of
organizational conflicts and deescalate them before small conflict become
large scale problem for the organization. It is important for employees in HR
departments to have great conflict management skills so that they are able to
find practical solutions for internal organizational conflicts.
Talent
management
The concept of talent management is defined as methodological, strategic and
organized process of attracting and retaining talented employees in the
organization and developing their capabilities (Nasiri and Bageriy, 2020). The
aim of talent management is ensuring that every position in the company is
filled with the best candidates from the available talent pools who can take the
organization towards the right direction. HR interns in the current age need to
have experience, knowledge and skills related with talent development because
it helps them effectively supporting senior administrative HR staff manage the
workforce. In context of Morisons the talent management skill is needed by
HR interns because it helps the company build a highly skilled and talented
workforce and provide the firm competitive advantage in the retail industry.
Multitasking
skills
Individuals recruited at intern position of the Human resource management
industry need to be good multi-taskers. This is because Human resource
department is a unique department which engages with every other functional
and core department of the company (Della Torre, 2019). HR interns have to
engage with employees from financial department to gain funding for various
Talent development initiatives, they have to collaborate with other departments
for implementing appropriate skill development programmes and coordinate
with marketing department to create material helpful in advertising empty
vacancies in the labour market. This means that they have to do multi-tasking
while also collaborating with different functional departments in the company
tasking the job even more challenging.
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Section C:
3.0 SWOT ANALYSIS
SWOT analysis is a widely used framework for conducting internal analysis of any business entity
or the internal capabilities of individuals. This analytical framework allows individuals to evaluate
their strengths and weaknesses in context of specific career, educational or personal goal and review
the threats and opportunities which will impact attainment of the goal (Hajizadeh, 2019). My career
aim is to gain the job of HR intern at the UK based retail chain Morisons and the SWOT analysis
for this context is completed below:
Strengths
 Communication skills: My communicating capabilities are great. I am able to effectively
utilize different mediums for communicating with different individuals. I have good
command over both written and oral communication and my language proficiency is also
effective. This helps me utilize formal as well as informal language effectively in different
types of working scabrous. At the role of HR intern, I will be babel to use my effective
communication skills to communicate with my seniors and teammates effectively.
 Time Management skills: I have effective time management skills. This means that I am
able to deliver best results for any task under the given timeline. It is because of my
effective time management skills I have been able to prepare myself for various HR entry
level jobs. At the role of HR intern in Morison’s I will be able to use my time management
skills for effectively supporting HR employees in implementation of HR strategies and gain
beneficial outcome for every stakeholder associated with the strategy.
Weaknesses
 Multitasking skills: I am not a good multitasker. This is because in order to complete any
task with perfection, I need to analyses and implement it with my complete concentration.
This applies to both easy low skill tasks and high skills strategic activities. At the role of
HR intern employees are required to multitask because they collaborate with various
departments and oversee completion of different strategic activities on a daily basis. I need
to improve this skill in order to become a skilled HR intern
 Risk taking abilities: I am not capable of taking highly risky decisions and overseeing their
implementation. This weakness can be attributed to my lack of risk management knowledge
and lack of experience in dealing with high stakes workplace situation.HR interns are bold
risk takers because they deal with scenarios influenced by different variables. For example,
the process of implementing organizational change is highly risky and interns have to
support HR manager in facing these risks in calculative and strategic way. I need to enhance
my risk taking ability to perform as expected at job of HR intern.
Opportunities
 Securing performance management credentials: Performance management is an important
part of human resource management and is defined as the continuous process of clarifying
job responsibilities, priorities, performance expectations and development with the aim of
optimizing performance of employees and aligning them with strategic goals of an
organization (Franco Santos and Otley,‐ 2018). I do not have specific experience and
credentials related to performance management. Acquiring certification or diploma
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specifically related to performance management can boost my CV and make me more
attractive for HR intern job position at Morisons.
 Digital Brand development: I have the opportunity to create an attractive digital
professional brand which helps me stand out from my competition and secure job of HR
intern at Morisons. Digital brand development and management is an important part of
employability in the current age because most recruiters search online sites and social
media presence of potential job candidates to find the best fit for the company (Reed, 2018).
Threats
 High competition: There is intense competition in the job market as many highly qualified
and experienced individuals look to secure stable job in a reputed company. In case of
Morisons the competition for any managerial post is huge because it has nationwide
popularity and presence. I need to update my credentials, eliminate my weaknesses and
develop an attractive personal brand to attain the job of HR intern and tackle intense
competition.
 Pandemic Changes: The COVID-19 pandemic has changed with work culture in many
industries. A hybrid work culture supporting physical working and online work from home
option is implemented at many organizations including retail (Ge and et. al., 2022). I
believe that it is threat to my employment at Morison’s because it increases the job
candidates who can apply for the job even if they are living far away from the recruitment
location.
3.1 PERSONAL SKILL AUDIT (Gap analysis)
Personal Skill Audit
List of
Knowledge
Rating List of Skill Rating List of
Behaviour
Rating
Business
Management
4 Communication
skills
5 Strong Ethics 3
Microsoft
Office
3 Conflict
resolution skills
3 Empathetic 3
Performance
management
2.5 Multitasking
skills
1 Risk Taker 2
Rating should be Between 1 – 5. Where 1 is the lowest and 5 is the highest.
3.2 SMART OBJECTIVES
Objective Smart Measurable Attainable Relevant Timely
To gain
certification
in
It is specific
as it focuses
on specific
It can be
measured by the
result
It can be attained by
enrolling in online
performance
It will boost
the CV and
make it
6
months
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performance
managemen
t
part of HR
knowledge
development.
certification
program.
management
certification course.
more
suitable for
HR job.
To develop
multi-
tasking
skills
It is
particular in
nature as it
focuses on
specific
skills
The
measurement
criteria is ability
to handle
variety of tasks
simultaneously
It can be attained
by improving
concentration,
making to do lists,
delegating
responsibilities and
monitoring daily
activities
(Kamberidou,
2020).
Multi-
tasking is
skill
requirement
for HR
intern job.
3
months
To learn
about risk
managemen
t
This is
specific as it
aims on
particular
area of
knowledge
The
measurement
criteria is ability
to make better
decisions while
faced with
risks.
This can be
accomplishing
through online
learning courses on
risk management.
It will help
become
better risk
taker for
HR intern
job.
7
months
To develop
digital brand
for
professional
growth
It focuses on
personal
brand
development
on online
platforms.
Ability to
network with
recruiters to
secure job at
Morisons HR
intern post.
Learning about
personal branding
and digital branding
and implanting
knowledge on various
digital platforms such
as Linked In.
It will
directly
result in
recruitment
at the firm.
1 year
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN AND TRAINING
Skills Required for
Professional
Development
Training /
Method
Duration
(Short, Mid
and Long
term plan)
How they relate to employability
Multi tasking skills E-learning and
Physical action
Short
(3 months)
This skills is needed for performing
effectively at the role of HR intern.
Risk management
skills
Online courses Mid
(7 months)
This is an expected skill for attaining
position of HR intern.
Personal branding E learning Long
(1 year)
Personal branding helps improve
networking needed for employability
(Minor-Cooley and Parks-Yancy, 2020).
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4 Conclusion
From the above report it is determined that there is high competition for the job position of
HR intern and potential job candidates need to develop their skills and capabilities in order to
achieve employability at the position of HR intern. Developing employability in the current age
requires creation of specific documents needed to secure the job. This includes personal statement
for the specific job opportunity. In addition to this identifying the essential skills needed to attain
the job is another requirement because it helps compare own capabilities and identify strengths and
weaknesses. In addition to this individuals, can use their SWOT analysis to identify their strengths
and weaknesses along with the threats and opportunities in the job market. Skills audit is also an
important part of identifying areas which need to be improved immediately to secure employability.
All this data can be used for developing SMART objectives and professional development plan
guiding further growth of individuals to attain employability in field of choice.
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5 References
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