Professional Identity and Practice

This essay examines the importance of professional and personal development in the context of Marriott International. It analyzes the skills and competencies required for a marketing manager role, different learning theories and approaches, and develops a personal development plan. The essay also discusses the strengths and weaknesses of a structured job interview process.

Professional Identity and
Practice

Table of Contents
Part A....................................................................................................................................................1
Introduction and overview of Marriott International.......................................................................1
The skills and competences required or expected by the employees for a specific role in Marriott
International companies...................................................................................................................2
The importance and benefits of undergoing professional and personal development and how it
enhances the career prospects..........................................................................................................3
Different learning theories and approaches used for personal and professional development.
There are various numbers of different learning theories from which an individual can learn and
develop their personal and professional skills(Cruess, Cruess and Steinert, 2016). ......................4
PART B.................................................................................................................................................6
Development Plan............................................................................................................................6
PART C.................................................................................................................................................9
Job Interview Process......................................................................................................................9
Strengths and Weakness of Interview Process.................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................11
Appendix............................................................................................................................................12

Part A
Introduction and overview of Marriott International
Marriott international is a group of an American diversified hospitality industry founded
in Washington D.C. in 1927,by J. Willard Marriott, and now the company is led by his sons,
Executive chairman, Bill Marriott and Executive officer Arne Sorenson. Marriott Internation
company manages and franchises broad portfolio of various hotels and lodging facilities. It is
one of the largest hotel chain in the whole world with 30 brands and more than 5700 hotels with
1.1 million rooms, in about 110 countries all across the world. Marriott international is one of the
finest hospitality industry in the world that has been known for its culture, that put people first.
They provide the advantages of sound management, excellent record of leadership in their
industry and a strong balance-sheet. The business models, service culture, brand and senior
leaders have helped the Marriott international to establish itself as a leading performer in the
world (Byname, 2015).
Revenue generated by Marriott international for quarter ending 31 December 2018 was
calculated $20.758 Billion, which is an increase of 2.02% year over year, For the 12 months
ending Dec. 31, 2018 the revenue was calculated $20.758 billion ,which as an increase of 1.5%
from 2017.The company also added more than 18000 rooms in the third quarter of year 2018
inclusive of 1500 rooms which are converted from competitor's brand , adding approx. 10,000
rooms in the international market.
There is competition in every industry. There are such market players that compete with
Marriott international: such as Wyndham Worldwide Corporation, IHN inter-continental hotels
group), four seasons hotels limited, Hilton Hotels and resorts, Accor hotels etc.

The skills and competences required or expected by the employees for a specific
role in Marriott International companies
Marriott international is the largest hotel chain industry which is known for excellence of
services. The industry has invested billions of money in implementing marketing strategies to
building awareness and promoting customer loyalty about the hotel especially in the early stage
of the industry. Marketing manager plays an important role in creating awareness and attracting
new customers or clientele.
There are various skills and competences which is required by a good marketing manager
are as follows:
 A marketing managers should have excellent written and spoken communication skills
i.e. it should be listening skills, being patient and have positive attitude, being concise
and clear.
 In a marketing field, the managers need to communicate to its customers, and has to deal
with many customers throughout the day, in order to communicate to the various
customers across the globe language skills should be strong, the managers is required to
know different languages as by speaking the client's language it enables them to establish
more intimate relationship which results in promoting customer's loyalty and satisfaction
towards the brand.
 A marketing manager of an international hospitality company should have knowledge
about search engine optimization.
 Ability to understand and monitor the trends and consumer behaviour.
 The ability to conceptualize and understand the hotel brand's mission and vision.
 Should have experience collaboration with the hotel reservation websites
 Technical skills should be strong as the marketing function has changed its operations by
doing it through digitalisation and by online sources.

The above mentioned skills and competencies are necessarily required by the marketing
managers of an international brand or company.
The importance and benefits of undergoing professional and personal development
and how it enhance the career prospects
Continuing or undergoing professional development is an important part for any
individual working in an organisation or in a company. It ensures an individual to continue the
competency in their profession, it is a continuous process and undergoes throughout a
professional career.
 Undergoing professional development helps an individual to ensure their capabilities to
keep pace with current standards with others in the same field.
 Continuous professional programs(CPD) aids to ensure the knowledge stays up to date
and relevant ,which makes them aware about the changing trends and gives them a
direction in their profession.
 It also helps the individual tom stay interested in their field ,which may results in opening
up to new knowledge, skills and possibilities and hence it could help the individual to
enhance the career prospects.
Ongoing personal development enables an individual to reach their full potential and improve
their performance at every stages of their career. The importance of ongoing personal
development to an individual:
 It boost the motivation as the individual becomes aware of the strength, level of skills,
and weaknesses. Understanding then positive and negative attitudes, and how its
consequences can affect others , the individual tends to act in a different manner after
understanding their attitude(D'Souza and Gurin, 2016).
 The most pronounced advantage is of personal development is claiming back the personal

power. Hence, it can help the individual to enhance their career prospects.
Different learning theories and approaches used for personal and professional
development. There are various numbers of different learning theories from
which an individual can learn and develop their personal and professional
skills(Cruess, Cruess and Steinert, 2016).
 Cognitive theory is a learning theory that stresses on the acquisition of skills and
knowledge, processing of beliefs and information, formation of mental structure etc. This
theory refers with an internal mental phenomenon which could be inferred from what the
other people say and so, the best learning can takes place when an individual do it by
herself or himself.
 VARK learning theory is an acronym which stands for : Visual, Audial, Read/write ,
Kinesthetic, the VARK theory of learning categorizes the abilities to understand and catch
in four parts. There are people who understand and get the easily by looking at the
information given to them,for e.g. board teaching etc. Then there are such people who
understand quickly by hearing the information and by learning the information, they
could learn., Some people have the ability to learn something by way of writing or
reading, whereas some people who are kinaesthetic learners prefers to learn from direct
practice, hands on activities etc.
These learning theories helps an individual to develop their personal and professional skills and
enhance their career prospects.
Evaluation of my abilities, skills and competences for the marketing manager in an organisation
SWOT (Strength, weakness, opportunities and threats) analysis :
Strength: As a marketing manager, I have certain strengths that helps me in achieving the

organisational goals, I am adaptable, as a marketing manager, I need to adapt myself according to
the situations and environment I am in and I feel that I adapt myself easily in every situations, I
can deal with clients in their language, it helps to built intimate relationships with the customers.
I understand the changing trends and have the ability to cope up with the customer's need and
preferences according to the market trends.
Weakness: The weakness I have is poor communication skills, As a marketing manager ,the
foremost thing one should have is good communication skills, but I cannot deal with the
customers being comfortable and cannot communicate them properly, poor creativity skills is
another weakness as I am not a creative mind person and cannot think about new ideas. I cannot
make big decisions as I feel confused and nervous about the negative impact of the
outcomes(Grant, 2017).
Opportunities: Digitalisation could be a great opportunity for the marketing managers, as it can
help in enhancing the effectivity in this field, Advertising through social media could be another
great opportunity which could help the mangers to reach the customers easily. Improving my
weakness could help me in getting new opportunities for the development of my career.
Threats: Competitions, change in government laws and policies, environmental changes could be
threats and can decrease the change of opportunities, I can get in order to develop my career
prospects (Wosket, 2016).
Brunil skill model
Good
Very good
Average
Bad

Skills
Oral communication
Problem solving and critical thinking
Written communication
Numeracy
Technical skills
The best approaches to enhance the profession and personal development
In order to develop or enhance the personal and professional skills , the organisation must
follow these approaches to overcome their weakness and convert them into their strengths.
 Presentations/ workshop approach: This approach supports in raising the awareness
among members regarding the new ideas/strategies.
 Observation/feedback: It provides the managers/participators with feebcaks and
suggestions regarding their performance, it helps them to improve their weakness and
provides them new opportunities to develop their personal and professional skills.
 Research/Inquiry: This approach helps the members to reflect on their daily activities in
an intentional manner, systematic and overtime(Guntrip, 2018).
PART B
Development Plan
A development plan involves documenting the required goals, skills and competencies an

employee need to accomplish in order to assist continuous growth and career development.
1 = (Poor)
5 = (Very Good)
Skills /
Competencies
Current Level Strategies Resources Time
To improve
communication
skills
3 Practise active listening
Take coaching to build strong
communication skills
Attend grooming and
personality development
classes
Internet
Mentor
Laptop
Pen
Notebook
1 month
To improve
creativity skills
2 Learn new things
Interact with new people
Study cases and books
Internet
Laptop
Books
Pen
2 months
To improve
decision making
competencies
2 Do research of facts and
figures
Don't dwell on mistakes
Get a well informed opinion
Participate in orientation
programmes
Laptop
Internet
Seminar Halls
1 month
To improve
conflict
3 Be patient and calm
Work in groups
Internet
Laptop
2 months

resolution
competencies
Maintain a positive attitude
Be a good listener
Work on emotional
intelligence
Pen
Notebook
Cognitive Learning and Development theory
This theory focuses on mental processes by which learners inhabit, store, interpret and
retrieve information. This theory deals in the way human being acquires and understands
knowledge through thinking. Cognitive Learning helps in expanding mental ability, observing
oneself and developing the thought process. This process helps in improving decision making
and conflict resolution competencies. Cognitive learning is based on effectively absorption and
understanding of new things. It helps in creating a cognitive map in the mind of learner and it
creates an image of external environment and preserves the information collected as a result of
events encountered during the learning process. This process helps the learner to improve its
creativity and innovation skills and also raise its ability to communicate (Nias, 2017).
VARK Learning Theory
The VARK Theory stands for visual, aural, read and kinaesthetic sensory modalities
which assist for learning skills. The VARK learning theory helps to build visual, auditory, written
and kinaesthetic (learning through a physical activity) abilities in a learner. The auditory and
written attribute helps in improving communication skills and decision making competencies.
The visual and kinaesthetic attributes aids in improving creativity and conflict resolution ability.
The development plan strategies with the aid of resources will help in improving the skills
and competencies of marketing manager. This will result in a positive outcome by improving the
communication and creativity skills & decision making and conflict resolution competencies

(Körkkö, Kyrö-Ämmälä and Turunen, 2016).
PART C
Job Interview Process
A structured interview process is pursued by the organisation to appoint an individual for the
job role of marketing manager. A structured interview is a kind of formal and organized
interview and may include a pool of interviews. The process of structured interview involves the
following steps :
 The application of candidates is scanned and sorted as per the qualifications of
candidates.
 The post screening is done on the basis of experience and technological knowledge.
 A personal interview is conducted for the assessment of candidates.
 The structured interview begin with an ice breaker question which is used to relax the
candidate before asking him/her more serious questions.
 Next, the interviewer talks about the company and the job profile. The interviewer
describes the key roles and day to day responsibilities and company's philosophy.
 Further, the interviewer asks about educational qualifications regarding marketing
knowledge, co-circular activities and work experiences of candidate.
 Finally, the interviewer asks if the candidate have any questions or query oh his or her
behalf (Johnson, 2016).

Strengths and Weakness of Interview Process
The strengths and weakness of structured interview process are as :
The strengths and weakness of structured interview process are as :
Strengths
 It involves several rounds of interviews which completely assess the abilities of
candidate.
 The questions are based primarily on the key job role of the candidate.
 The interviewer focusses on delivering the company's philosophy to the candidate.
Weakness
 It lacks variety of open ended questions.
 The interview is conducted in a too formal tone and is cautious.
 The interview is not conducted in comfortable manner (Jackson, 2016).
CONCLUSION
From the above study, it can be summarized that Marriott hotels requires skilled and
competent managers in order to compete with its competitors and ensure the growth and
expansion of their hospitality industry. Ongoing personal and professional development plays an
important role in development of an individual and the development can be done through
adapting various learning theories. The study further evaluates that one should know their
strengths and weaknesses so that it can help them in professional and personal development. It
also expresses the development plan a manager needs to identify the learning and training it will
need in an organisation. The development plan helps in enhancing the skills and competencies of

the individual.
REFERENCES
Books and journal
Bynum, Y. P., 2015. The power of informal mentoring. Education, 136(1). pp.69-73.
Cruess, R. L., Cruess, S .R. and Steinert, Y. eds., 2016. Teaching medical professionalism:
supporting the development of a professional identity. Cambridge University Press.
D'Souza, J. and Gurin, M., 2016. The universal significance of Maslow’s concept of self-
actualization. The Humanistic Psychologist, 44(2). p.210.
Grant, J., 2017. The good CPD guide: A practical guide to managed continuing professional
development in medicine. CRC Press.
Guntrip, H., 2018. Psychoanalytic theory, therapy and the self. Routledge.
Jackson, D., 2016. Re-conceptualising graduate employability: the importance of pre-
professional identity. Higher Education Research & Development, 35(5). pp.925-939.
Johnson, T. J., 2016. Professions and Power (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.
Körkkö, M., Kyrö-Ämmälä, O. and Turunen, T., 2016. Professional development through
reflection in teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 55. pp.198-206.
Nias, J., 2017. A more distant drummer: teacher development as the development of self.
In Education and social change(pp. 3-28). Routledge.
Wosket, V., 2016. The therapeutic use of self: Counselling practice, research and supervision.
Routledge.
Online
7 strategies for personal professional learning.2017.[online].available
through<https://barbarabray.net/2017/08/31/7-strategies-for-personal-professional-learning/>

Appendix
Job description
Company Marriott hotel
Location London
Post Marketing manager
Role and responsibility Handling customer quarries
Boosting sales executives
Recording sales
Qualification Graduation from recognised university
MBA in marketing
Working hours 10-5 PM