Professional Career Development: Assignment

Professional Career
Development

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
Skills and Knowledge needed for working effectively....................................................................1
Communication Skills............................................................................................................2
Public Speaking......................................................................................................................3
Team working.........................................................................................................................4
Creativity................................................................................................................................5
Sales and Marketing...............................................................................................................5
Computer and Electronics Skills............................................................................................6
Mathematics...........................................................................................................................6
Readiness for employability and personal advancement through understanding of personal
strengths and areas for further development....................................................................................7
Readiness for Employability..................................................................................................7
Personal development by gaining knowledge of strengths and weaknesses through SWOT 8
Identification of Learning Style..............................................................................................9
Establishment of employment goals and development of a personal action plan.........................10
Establishment of employment goals.....................................................................................10
Personal Action Plan............................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Professional Career Development is a crucial aspect of every individual's life as this
determines the pace at which a person is advancing with reference to one's career. To undertake
entry into professional work area, it is important for personnel to possess some essential skills,
knowledge and competences (Steinert, O’Sullivan and Irby, 2019). These skills are required as
they are regarded as prerequisites to gain access to a professional work area. Business skills are
thus those traits which are required to be present in an individual's personality in order to render
them aid in running or operating within the confines of an industry.
There are a number of skills that are considered to be necessary for a person to effectively
execute tasks of a particular business sector. Such skills are acknowledged to be communication
(written and oral), negotiation, team working, conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, time
management, public speaking, resilience, researching etc. All of these need to be present within a
person so that they can work in a company in a desirable manner (Horn, Pilkington and Hooten,
2019). Apart from this, some of the advanced skills that are considered necessary for
professionals are strategic thought process, leadership, presentation etc. The present assignment
takes into account the skills and knowledge areas that are considered to be important for working
effectively. Also, it includes readiness for employability and personal advancement through with
the help of ascertainment of personal strengths and areas for further development. At last,
employment goals are developed along with a personal action plan to enhance existing skill set.
Skills and Knowledge needed for working effectively
A professional can be referred to as the person who is equipped with specialised skills,
knowledge and academic competence in order to execute the tasks at workplace. With the help of
the knowledge gained as a part of academic life, it can be said that professionals get a chance to
showcase the skill set while executing work within corporate settings (van der Wal and et. al.,
2019). This helps personnel in getting elevated in their field of interest. As a result of this,
individuals are able to exercise personal and professional development from the very beginning
of gaining entry into corporate world. Almost all of the graduates harbour some career
aspirations. With a view to impress their employers with their work and easily climb the ladder
of success, there is a need for individuals to constantly enhance their knowledge and skills. For a
person to work effectively within the confines of organisational settings, it is essential that they
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possess some key skills as well as knowledge base within their personality. Such kind of skills
and knowledge are discussed in detailed manner, as follows:-
SKILLS
Communication Skills
A professional operating within the confines of corporate world needs to have effective
communication skills. This is so because this is the skill which every employers looks up to
while selecting a candidate to work within their company. As soon as a person encounters the
employer, employers start noticing the manner in which the individual behaves. Everything from
the way a person converses over a call to the way they draft a mail to the way information is
presented within Resume / CV and Cover Letter to the manner in which they interact during
interview is noticed by the top authorities of the company before selecting an individual for
filling a job vacancy (Horn and et. al., 2019). Every corporate sector requires personnel with
polished as well as effective communication skills. Fluent and impeccable communication is
required by employers across the globe from the staff working within their entity. This is
essential as this forms the base while interacting with clients, management and colleagues. In this
regard, communication is of various types, namely, oral, written, verbal and non verbal.
Almost every professional working within any business sector makes use of these
communication methods in order to communicate vital and crucial data within the vicinity of
company. Professionals working within any field of work are expected to be equipped with
sound knowledge about communication tools and techniques so as to deliver information to a
wide audience (7 skills for a successful management career, 2019). This is a skill which needs to
be present in an individual operating within an enterprise as with this, one can present one's
views and opinions to a large base of people. This skill becomes extremely important while
undergoing corporate presentations in meetings whereby one needs to keep the audience engaged
by any means. For this, the speaker has to keep asking questions, maintain eye contact with the
participants, make use of non verbal cues so that the personnel present within the meeting does
not feel bored or lethargic. With this, an individual can maintain networking with colleagues and
seniors so as to procure any vital information from them (Chang and et. al., 2019). For this, an
employee needs to maintain open and positive attitude towards learning new things at workplace.
Active encouragement at place of work always fosters individuals to interact with personnel of
company effectively, thereby ensuring one's growth and development.
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Public Speaking
Almost each and every job within any sector of corporate world requires certain level of
public speaking. It is not necessary that an individual needs to give presentations on a daily basis,
but it is quite obvious that a person engaged in a company has to voice their opinions and
thoughts during a meeting. Also, some extent of this skill is also required while communicating
information to a large number of colleagues in organisational premise or while interacting in a
group. Employees working within any field of work should have the capability to speak to others
in a clear manner while presenting data as per the requirements of company. This is an
imperative skill that must be present within individuals working in any field to communicate to a
large audience at any point of time. Public speaking is one of the most crucial skills that one
must have, as it needs high level of confidence, practice and analysis of the audience among
which information has to be conveyed by the professional (Top Skills Professionals Need for
Workplace Success, 2019). This is a type of skill that is inherent in some individuals while can
be developed by others. Professionals working within the confines of any business sector aim at
developing this skill because it is one of the key skills that is desired by employers across even
the multinational corporations.
Public speaking skills carry high importance in context of professional life and career
elevation. Although a person does not get engaged in public speaking on a daily basis, it is
significant for a person to exercise this skill constantly so as to develop one's confidence level,
thereby decreasing the anxiety one encounters when facing a large base of people. The skill of
public speaking comes into use, not just at the time of delivery of speech in meetings but also at
the time of motivational lectures, professional presentation, training event, counselling sessions
etc. It is largely seen that almost all types of professionals, inclusive of trainers, consultants,
managers, leaders, sales executives, teachers make use of this skill in order to effectively put
forward their views and opinions in front of others (Brown and Bogiages, 2019). A number of
factors are taken into consideration while enhancing one's public speaking skills. These factors
can be said to be inclusive of voice control, use of non verbal cues, stage presence, speech
delivery, relations with audience etc. A professional who is proficient in public speaking takes
into account all of these aspects while giving delivery of one's views and opinions in front of a
large quantum of people.
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Team working
Team working is considered as capability of individuals working in a group by
cooperating with other team members. In this, the main motive of all group members is to attain
their common objective of team with the support of each team member. It is seen as an important
skill that is required to be owned by every individual who so ever is planning to work in
corporate environment (Landrigan and et. al., 2019). It simply helps an organisation is gaining its
long as well as short term goals by using core strength of their team members at the time of
working for single project. Team working skill mainly promotes friendship and loyalty within
the company as it develops positive relationship among all team members. This ultimately
motivates employees to worker harder, place their additional efforts towards organisational goals
and make them work in common direction so that their aim can be attained in quicker manner. It
also develops feeling of cooperation and support among employees for one another as they
believe that their support and friendly behaviour is the key towards their growth.
With reference to the employees' own benefits, it can be said that if a professional has
strong command over this skill then it is easier for them to sustain longer in the team and
enhance chances of their success in company. This will also support them in the growth of their
professional life as well. While placing influence over this skill on the self development or
growth of individual, it can be said that team working also supports individual in learning other
core skills because as they gets opportunities in boosting up their weak areas by analysing other
team members dealing with the similar kind of skill (Top Skills Professionals Need for
Workplace Success, 2019). It can be further said that when an employee works in a team then
they gets support of their team members as well as seniors too who helps in realising their own
core weak skills. Along with this, the superiors also guide employees with lack skills about
different ways through which these weak skills can be improved. As a result, team working skill
is considered as an effective skill which is valuable for employees as well as organisation. This is
because, it provides growth and learning opportunity to employee at individual level whereas, it
is beneficial for the company too because if its employees has effective command over team
working skill then it is easier for them in attaining all goals in quicker manner. This ultimately
results in the fast growth of organisation.
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Creativity
This is yet another key skill that is required to be present within professionals working in
any field of work in order to execute their roles and responsibilities in a unique manner. This is a
kind of skill which exhibits that a person takes initiative to come up with new and unique ways
of executing tasks or solving an issue. Being creative at workplace holds a number of benefits for
professionals as this entails the capability of a person to develop solutions to issues by making
use of their creative thinking and past experiences, together with the use of resources and
information. Creative thinking is the ability of professionals to look at something in a unique
way in order to come up with something “out of the box” (Scalise and et. al., 2019). Thus,
creativity can be said to be lateral thinking whereby a person has the ability to perceive things
which do not seem to be much obvious. Employers in the modern era now require candidates
who have creative thinking skills so that they can come up with new and unique ideas that can
take their company to new heights. While conducting the interview process for recruitment and
selection of professionals for operating in the entity, employers often ask questions that require
individuals to apply the element of creativity and spontaneity.
Creativity allows individuals working within the confines of any business sector to work
effectively by devising unique ways to address the issues that emerge upon their way to execute
tasks. With the help of this skill, professionals are able to see their work with a new perspective,
viewing it in an interesting manner. This type of thinking can facilitate departments and units
within a company to move in productive directions (Budjanovcanin, Rodrigues and Guest,
2019). Thus, this skill is regarded to be extremely important to be possessed by an individual at
work station. Some individually are found to be more creative than other persons; however,
creativity can be equipped in a person with a lot of practice. Making use of unique and
innovative techniques helps personnel to enhance workflow at workplace. Also, it results in
savings of time, cost and efforts, thereby helping the organisation in enhancing the quality of its
services and products.
KNOWLEDGE AREAS
Sales and Marketing
This is one of the key knowledge areas for professionals engaged in profession associated
with sale and marketing. Almost every company has a sales and marketing department which
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consists of personnel that are required to possess knowledge about some particular aspects
pertaining to this area of work. Gaining comprehensibility of the methods and principles of
promotion, presentation and sale of organisational offerings is important irrespective of the
designation that a person holds within a company (Top 20 skills you need to develop your career,
2019). The importance of having understanding of this knowledge area comes into play whereby
an individual faces an opportunity to promote their entity and its offerings to the public they
meet. This kind of promotion may be done in front of an acquaintance or peer, or it may take
place in a much more formal scenario. In such cases, possessing comprehensibility of the basic
marketing strategy coupled with sales technique and control system prove to be fruitful for the
individual in persuading the purchase behaviour of consumers.
Computer and Electronics Skills
Almost each and every job role pertaining to business sectors in the confines of corporate
world requires professionals to possess certain level of understanding of computer and
electronics in general. This is regarded to be important for individuals working within a business
organisation because as the entity advances to make use of latest and emerging tools and
technologies, it is essential that personnel have basic knowledge about computer and associated
aspects (McKeown, 2019). Having this knowledge assists a professional to adapt to the
technologies and methods that are being used within the confines of a company. Emerging
technologies are enforced within the organisational premises in areas such as communication,
writing, calculating, presentations, decision making etc. This is done with the sole motive of
conducting the day to day tasks within the stipulated course of time, thus giving their
contribution towards helping the entity to achieve its long term goals as per the requirements.
Mathematics
Even when the job role of a professional is not linked to mathematics, arithmetic,
calculus and statistics, possessing basic comprehensibility of these aspects at times become
essential for individuals. Constantly updating and enriching one's knowledge of mathematics is
considered to be an important part of maintaining competitive edge in labour market. In this
regard, statistics is useful for individuals who are many a time asked to produce graphs and
figures through the analysis of quantitative information (Vondracek, Lerner and Schulenberg,
2019). Thus, this is a yet another crucial knowledge area which becomes handy for professionals
while executing their job roles and responsibilities.
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Readiness for employability and personal advancement through
understanding of personal strengths and areas for further development
Readiness for Employability
Employability readiness can be referred to as the ability of an individual to find, acquire and
maintain a relevant job together with the transitions to new jobs as and when required (Powell
and Bodur, 2019). The Employment Readiness Model is thereby based on the basic assumption
that in order to become “employment ready”, one must attain 3 associated goals:-
 Being self-sufficient on four Employability Factors that prepare you to manage your
work life:
 Career decision-making, or knowing what type of work suits you
 Skills enhancement, or having the skills and education for the work you want
 Job search, or having the skills to find work
 Ongoing career management, or being able to manage future work life changes
 Being strong on five Soft Skills that help you manage challenges and perform
effectively in your work life:
 Self-efficacy, or a sense of being able to perform well
 Outcome expectancy, or whether or not you expect to succeed and are willing to take
responsibility for creating that success
 Social supports, or your network and ability to get help
 Work history, or your feeling that you have performed well in previous work contexts,
paid or unpaid
 Job maintenance, or having the skills to keep work once found
 Understanding the particular stresses or challenges you face:
 Personal challenges, which you can usually address yourself
 Environmental challenges, which you can manage with help
 Systemic challenges, which have to be addressed on a community basis
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Research upon employment readiness reflects that just being self sufficient in 4
Employability Factors is not sufficient. Many persons encounter several types of issues or
hindrances which together act as stressors and can serve to be incapacitating in case effective
management of these is not done (Sprott, 2019). Professionals encountering various types of
challenges without help in handling these are most likely to get failed at workplace even
whereby they succeed in procuring a job. The 5 soft skills which assist individuals to do
management of issues, thereby performing in an effective manner have gained massive
importance in context of professional or corporate life. Thus, it can be easily said that all of the 3
elements Employment Readiness Model have equal importance and need to be taken into
consideration while gaining access to professional world.
Personal development by gaining knowledge of strengths and weaknesses through SWOT
In order to gain access to professional world, a person is required to possess certain
essential skills, knowledge and competences. These become necessary as they help a person to
execute the day to day tasks of job role in an effective and efficient manner. In this regard, it
becomes important for a person to undergo a complete and overall analysis of one’s strengths,
weakness, opportunities and threats (Cardillo, 2019). This will help the professional to identify
the areas of improvement and to further construct a plan for improvement in order to enhance the
existing level of those skills. For this purpose, the best tool that can be taken into use is SWOT
analysis.
In this regard, SWOT analysis will help me to gain an overall knowledge of my
personality and my readiness to gain entry into the field of work. My future plan is to open my
own Coffee Roaster Company. For this purpose, I need to take into account that there are certain
essential skills that must be present within me so that I can deal with complex situations that may
emerge in the business environment. I have conducted SWOT analysis of mine as follows:-
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
One of my biggest strengths is my creativity
that I involve for the execution of every task
in a unique manner. Also, I have likelihood
to deal with challenges as they help me to
become a better person. Further, my team
One of the biggest weaknesses of my
personality is that I lack the ability to lead a
team, i.e., I lack leadership skills. Yet
another crucial deficiency in my work
personality is the lack of effective
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working skills are also quite effective and
have always facilitated me to work with my
peers in coordination by practising
cooperation with them. I am an enthusiastic
person when it comes to work. I am also
able to do multi tasking through which I
strive to execute the tasks within the
stipulated course of time.
communication skills.
OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
In future course of time, I will encounter a
number of situations whereby I am needed
to apply my leadership and communication
skills. Thus, it is an opportunity for me to
enhance these skills at present so that when I
open the new venture, I do not have to
encounter any difficulties at workplace. By
enriching my personality with these skills, I
can get elevated in the field of my interest.
As it has been acknowledged that I lack
effective communication and good
leadership skills, it can be said that these are
the biggest threats for me in context of
professional world. This is so because both
the skills are crucial for executing any task
on a daily basis. Being the owner of Coffee
Roaster Company, I need to communicate
with the staff on a daily basis and practice
my leadership skills to guide them. Thus,
both the skills would prove to be threat for
me at that point of time.
Identification of Learning Style
In accordance with the learning styles proposed by Honey and Mumford, it can be easily
said that my personality is more of a reflector type of learner. This can be said as I am a believer
in observation, review and then reflection of what is learnt by me by way of experiences. When I
see other persons executing a particular task, I conduct an analysis of it as it is only then that I
can repeat the same. I do not regard myself as a spontaneous performer and require adequate
amount of time to do the preparations beforehand. I will make use of the above identified
learning style to carry out my learning process in an effective manner. This will assist me in
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raising my confidence level which would be essential for me to understand the changes taking
place within the confines of business environment and thus undertaking steps which can help
Coffee Roaster Company to sustain in market for a long period of time.
Establishment of employment goals and development of a personal action
plan
Establishment of employment goals
Career planning and development allows individuals to choose a suitable and relevant
career, shift from one career to another and carry out development of their skills and knowledge.
With the analysis of aptitude, personality and attitude of professional, career development begins
and thus emerges the need to establish employment goals for a lucrative career opportunity
(Guan and et. al., 2019). Stipulation of employment goals usually is inclusive of deciding upon
the kind of skills and knowledge base required to be developed, stipulation of financial
objectives, identification of need for stability and development of vision for gaining various
types of new experiences. It is essential for every individual to establish certain employment
goals before gaining access into professional world.
The employment goal established by me in relation to the launch of Coffee Roaster
Company in market place in future is set as follows:-
“To spend 3 days every month building customer understanding by shadowing team
mates in operation and sales department, and delivering a summary on key learnings to the
team.”
Personal Action Plan
Personal action plan is consider as a structure process to create a action plan which is
mainly based on a person learning, performance and achievement. With the help of this,
individual can effectively able to increase their personal, professional as well as educational
development. In addition with this, this plan covers challenges which is required to be overcome
by an individual. In this regard, I have also prepared a Personal Action Plan to improve my
leadership and communication skills.
Learning
Objectives
Present Targeted Development Criteria for Time Measure to
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Proficiency Proficiency Opportunity Judging
Success
frame improve
Communicatio
n Skills
Due to shy
nature there
is
inefficiency
of
communicati
on.
As to
overcome
with shyness
communicati
on skills
help in
gaining lot
of
advantages
in
workplace.
With the
assistance of
daily sessions
and other
communicati
on classes
fear can be
effectively
overcome.
With the
help of
judging
communicati
on way with
other
individuals
at
workplace.
10
days
Proper and
effective
planning will
aid to
overcome
shyness as to
attain
communicati
on skills.
Leadership
Skills
With the
increase
work
pressure
there is
deficiency in
leadership
skills
Regular
trials to
make an
increase in
guiding and
motivating
other
individuals.
With the help
of proper
time table
along with
following
same in best
effective
manner.
With
increase in
leadership
skill at
workplace.
7
days
With the help
of time
management
leadership
skills can be
effectively
increased.
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REFERENCES
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Guan, Y. and et. al., 2019. Career boundarylessness and career success: A review, integration
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van der Wal, M. M. and et. al., 2019. Impact of early career teachers' professional identity
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Vondracek, F. W., Lerner, R. M. and Schulenberg, J. E., 2019. Career development: A life-span
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