Professional Identity and Practice : Assignment Solution

Professional Identity and Practice

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PART 1............................................................................................................................................3
(a) Individual poster....................................................................................................................3
(b) Individual reflective report....................................................................................................5
Carrying of critical evaluation of your own skills, abilities and competences for the Assistant
Manager role...............................................................................................................................5
PART 2............................................................................................................................................9
PART 3 ........................................................................................................................................11
Application and interview for the Assistant Manager role............................................................11
STEP 1......................................................................................................................................11
STEP 3......................................................................................................................................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Professional identity and practice is necessary for every individual person as well as team
person to take care of their career and future. It actually involves developing skills, exposures or
abilities to develop for future career basis as well as enhancing long term future path. Skills,
abilities or competencies are the vital concept of personal or professional development of an
individual person to develop it for enhancing their future goals to accomplish (Roodbol, 2014).
This report will be based on self-reflection through which self analysis will be done on skills,
competencies or info matters. Apart from this, report will cover on going development of the
person, self-reflection over the skills, knowledge or competencies.
This report will also cover various learning theories that will be useful for personal and
professional development and developmental approaches of the assistant manager. Also, this
reflective report will be cover on structuring on the continuous development plan taking into the
consideration five different factors of basis and preparation of CV will be matter here. Lastly,
report will provide self-evaluation of own skills, competencies or knowledges.
PART 1
(a) Individual poster
Personal & professional development and its importance
PPD is defined as various activities which are taken into the existence to improves people
awareness and identity, enhance actual talents and potential, enabling the human capital as well
as facilitation of employability's (Jansen, 2017). It also have its role to enhance life's quality
along with contribution for accomplishment of the dream and aspiration. Personal development
is necessary for building person' career and life's long defined targets.
An evaluation of the importance of an on-going development
On-going development is continuous process for enhancement of skills, power or abilities
which are required to carry on developing of career path and self-growth and progress. In other
words, on-going development consists of identification, financial, appraisal, implementation and
evaluation to enhance the accuracy of the person to work effectively with given roles and work.
An on-going development is the process by which particular person can make their skills and
abilities better to enhance their working exposure to perform desired job properly along with
building an individual with the greater power an abilities.

On going development needs to have proper evaluation and values generation to make
changes into person's personality and exposures and skills development.
Brief summary: It is advisable that on going development should be long for entire career
path of the people and beneficial for them till an entire career and individual goals and targets of
the business.
A brief investigation of the skills and competencies expected by Thomas Cook for different
roles
Business roles Nature Level of skills/competencies
Sales consultant This job role is one critical task
which actually requires practical
work, advises and views or opinions
of different person or job roles
(Hoeve, 2017). In reality, this roles
requires bundle of skills, abilities or
person task to handle its
competencies.
For this role, communication skills are
required along with ability to get
people being convinced for final sales.
In sales consultant, negotiation power
is necessary to handle sales calls and
get generated higher profits. This role
holder should have ability to impress
customer to made to connects with
Thomas Cook for future business.
Assistant
manager
This role comprised to do coaching,
developing and mentoring sales team
into the Thomas Cook. Also, assistant
manager role is to inspire its other
employee's to get better efficiency
into the work or job role. This role in
future will consists of big scope of
managerial responsibilities with clear
cut guidance of the cluster manager
(Hercelinskyj, 2014).
For this role of assistant manager,
various skills such as communication,
time management, driven of team
performance, ability to motivate the
people to attain customer service with
intention to get business suitability
and results based outcomes. Assistant
manager should have other skills such
as solution based problem solving etc.
Assistant manager should have skills
like training/induction to joined' and
people who are hired previously to
make them aware about the job.

Cabin crew The nature of cabin crew job is
critical and along with different task
to do in critical situations. It has been
noticed that cabin crew role is to
handle various situation during flight
as well as listening to their customers
regarding wants or issues to deal with
it. It is noticed that cabin crew needs
to be highly skills and responsive to
what passenger's have desires and as
well as what situations they are facing
during the flight (Goldie, 2012).
Decision making skills are required to
solve any urgent issues or problems
lies in process of flights. For cabin
crew, communication skill, time
management and grievance practices
are also required to any kind customer
issues and problems.
(b) Individual reflective report
Carrying of critical evaluation of your own skills, abilities and competences for the Assistant
Manager role
In Thomas Cook, previously I was doing internship which is completely based on full of
recruitment & selection, afterwards I was shifted to training & development to learn more and
more knowledge over how to do training & induction of new or existing employee's. In reality,
this was belief of people, under whom I was doing my internship. In my context, it was noted
that I was quite interested in training & development, because it comes under my own interest to
pursue career in that field or area of future path. Through this entire internship, I gained control
over my thought process, feeling as well as idea generation to get compulsive results into an
entire career and future path goals (Edwards, 2015). But, I also noticed that various skills are still
not well-equipped and utilization, because of lot of work pressure and also I have ignored myself
on this context. As, senior manager offered me career in the Thomas Cook, as he was impressed
by my overall performance, knowledge and information, which they think will be suitable for
assistant manager role into the Thomas Cook. I am very much existed for this job role and
looking for this same to pursue. For my career in Thomas Cook, self reflection over my own

skills or abilities is necessary to undertaken in order to grown my actual competencies as well as
ability to perform higher into the future.
For this, I have prepared my own questionnaire through which I will rate my own skills,
competences or traits to test or check out my own abilities & skills to pursue the life long career.
Self reflection questionnaire of own skills/competencies
Rating scale (1 to 4)
S. no Skills/competencies Rating 1 Rating 2 Rating 3 Rating 4
1 Interpersonal skills
a. Listening skills X
b. Negotiation X
c. Problem-solving X
d. Decision making X
e. Verbal communication X
2 Intervention skills
a. Counselling & induction X
b. Education/training X
c. Team facilitation X
d. Conflict management X
e. Long relationship X
Rating 4: High competence level – Excellent experience in the skills
Rating 3: Moderate competence level - Good experience in the skill
Rating 2: Average competence level - Fair experience in a skill
Rating 1: Low competence level of - Little experience in a given skill

In the given table, there are two major skills named as Interpersonal and intervention
skills. On one hand, interpersonal skills involves negotiation, listening, problem solving, decision
making etc., while one other hand, intervention skills involves education/training, counselling or
induction, business relationship etc. For the job role of assistant manager, I will do linking of
these desired skills with my actual ones (Steinert, 2015). This will show what skills or
competencies I have and what level of competencies I needs to get for assistant manager role in
the Thomas Cook. Gap analysis will be suitable to know what level of competencies I actually
desired as well as how cam it be accomplish.
What skills I actually have: After complete analysis, I has been noticed that skills
related to communication, interaction and making effective decision making is quite good and
also on continuous process of an improvements. I am enriched with strong commitment and
ability to take my own idea, opinion or views for self development. As I believes that own
suggestion or idea and opinion are helpful for any individual to grow in their career and life
goals.
What skills or competencies I actually need to have: It has been identified that skills
which I need to be developed or gained such as time management, training & development,
leadership etc., to develop my personality or exposure to get suitable opportunities for job role in
the Thomas Cook. For bringing improvement in such skills, I necessary to have development
plan in order to make these skills more nourished and responsive to get competencies into my
credentials to do work into the Thomas Cook.
Learning theories and approaches that may use for personal and professional development
After the complete identification of required skills for job role of assistant manager, it is
necessary to discuss various theories related to learning & development to enhance my profile or
credentials for work role in Thomas Cook (Cruess, 2016). As per my point of view personal and
professional development is required to have longer career into the life as well as sustain it to
enhance future working suitability. Actually for development learning is necessary and pro-
active tool, which Is required to fill gaps found between actual and desired skills. In mine
context, two theories such as cognitive and behavioural approach will be used to enhance
potential of mine learning into the job. Cognitive approach to learning, which mainly concerned
with role and use of an active mind in the complete process of learning opportunities and
development. This learning theory is majorly associated with two main domain namely cognitive

domain, which is concerned with memory & understanding, while other one is affective domain,
which actually shows how feeling or emotion of the person can be alter or control as result of
post-learning thinking.
In response to this, I also realized that performance of every person majorly associated
with their feeling or emotions. The impact of this is huge and restive to person actual capacity to
perform or learn.
Behaviourist approach: This approach is completely based on learning around belief that
a desired behaviour will be taught through constant repetition of the work associated with
feedbacks from the evaluators. On one hand, where positive feedback encourages success of the
person, while on different side, negative feedback discourages the repetition of an mistake or
undesirable behaviour (Cruess, 2018). One of the major process to use behavioural approach in
learning is to specify clear objectives at an initial period and then enhancement of the learning
opportunities that will ensure that objectives would met.
Social learning style will be used to engage other's people while going under the learning
process. Also logical learnings style should be used, so that logics, reasoning and effective
system that should be based on results based outcomes from the desired learning, I will sure
focus on this learning style.
Personal development approach:
Personal development approach is the full-fledged process for overcoming several issues
related to any shortcomings in the skills, competencies and ability. Also, this approach will be
undertaken to know the action plans which will be taken to overcome any shortcomings into the
skills. This will be done with clear aims or objectives are as follow:
Approach Aim/objectives Action plan Desired outcomes
Time management The major aim is to
make self competent to
manage time for
building up my
exposure as per my
career requirements and
must focus on continues
development at every
Planning is necessary
to become effective
along with continuous
work over time
classification for
activities I do or will
do in future. Control
also requires for task
If planning would led
properly, time would
be managed effective
to have long live stage
of professional career.
Also, abilities would
raise with goal

phase of mine
professional stage.
doing. outcomes.
Leadership training The major aim is to led
role of what is
leadership and also how
such functioning of
leadership would enrich
my-self.
Continuous practices
with leading three-four
people in daily life is
sufficient to assess
general leader terms in
personality.
I was noticed that daily
life activities have
huge contribution in
professional gains of
any person
PART 2
Preparation of professional development plan
It is a formal means by which an individual sets out the goals, strategies and outcomes of
learning and training. These plan will vary between an individuals. This kind of plan various
between every individual (Pihl-Thingvad, 2015). In my context, I found various skills such as
problem solving, decision making and management of conflicts are major weakness, which I
actually needs to overcome or solve these challenges. These weakness would be overcome
through various activities, through the help of allocated time and duration and with desired
improvement results. For mine personal and professional development, the complete PDP is as
follows:
Skills Activities which needs to
be undertake
Resources Time-
frame
Desired
improvements
Conflict
management
For assistant manager role,
conflict management skill
needs to have for team
performance through
performing, simulation
method, real life scenario,
being control over mind
and behaviour are some of
The major resources
required such as
participation into team
work, presentation
mode, reading articles,
magazine, books etc.
1.8
months
Here, estimated
improvements
will be the higher
stages of conflicts
solving in me to
make self
sufficient for
assistant manager

tasks or work by which
conflict management skill
can be raised. Regular
practice is required with
control over anger and
stress to get adequate
results is one of desired
activities by which conflict
can be solved.
role. Apart from
this skill should
be increased in
order to achieve
effective relation-
ship with other
colleagues.
Decision
making
Activities such as
simulation , role practices,
work over the condition
scenario by which
decision-making ability
would raised up with
desired response. Logical
style shall be used, so that
I would enhance my
decision making for
defined role purpose. These
kind of style involves
logical thinking by which
collective decision making
ability would be raised with
development indication.
Coaching sessions,
training period and
decision based
magazines or books are
valuable resources to
get utilized for suitable
results.
1.5
months
Strategic power of
decision making
would raised to
gain professional
and personal
development for
self into longer
period of time.
This would
facilitation me in
future
development path
with major focus
on longer duration
in life.
Problem
solving
Various activities such as
case study work , scenario
based building along with
solving sudoku is the best
manner to enhances
Practical activities,
classroom activities,
case based study,
aptitude working along
with reasoning are
1.7
month
The ability to
solve problems
will be rise, as a
result of such
practices or fully-

problem-solving potential
in order to accomplish
professional development
into near future. Social
based learning style is the
suitable manner through
problem solving would get
competent.
some of the valuable
resources, which are
meant to help for
accomplishing problem
solving skills (den
Brok, 2013).
fledged activities.
Also, the ability
to take critical
decision will also
rise with an
ability to get
defined goals
being achieved.
PART 3
Application and interview for the Assistant Manager role
STEP 1
Curriculum Vitae(CV)
Mathew Wane
Address: Pear street, London (35075)
Email id: [e-mail]
Professional summary: Charismatic personality with wonderful behaviour to attract other
people. As big career inspirer, I have a look out for long career in the human resource sector
with special focus into area of training & development especially. I have gained internship
experience of 3 months in the leading travels & tourism known as Thomas Cook.
Skills: My strengths are my actual skills such as interpersonal, communication, through which I
have got scope for command. As, I belongs to category of constant learner with constant
learning from society. I also have major skills named as problem-solution, negotiating abilities,
potential to convenience others people with effective management (Bridges, 2012) I have
strong and powerful leadership potential to deliver their customer an efficient product or

services. My skills are sufficient to give major focus on enhancement of the team performance
on the efficient level. Skill and potential for finding solution of problems/issues is one of my
major strength.
Work experience:
Full-time Internship
Company: Thomas Cook
Duration:3 months
Summary: During the period of internship, I assigned with HR department and my personal
interest lies under HR context. In very first initial stage, I was shifted to recruitment & selection
department, but after one month, I again shifted to training & development department to have
future exposure in that specific field. During that period of my internship, I was actually
assigned various project related to planning, training & induction modules. In response, I have
planned several inductions sessions for new candidates, who have recently joined in the
Thomas Cook (Wald, 2015). During the making of complete induction plan, various tasks such
as self-introduction, eyes-breaking sessions have been conducted by our seniors person in the
Thomas Cook. During the recruitment & selection, I was taught-up about aspects related to
selection tests, application's initial screening etc.
Education: My higher education belongs to the Master of business administration(MBA) from
a recognised institution.
Hobbies and interest: From past till now, my major hobbies are photography and I also like
travelling to explore new or existing places. Apart from this, I also like playing instruments,
cooking and acting.
Extra-curricular: I have engaged in several social charity such as clothes distribution to poor
kids, orphanage people and support to old age homes.
Cover letter
Thomas Cook
56, Pearl Zone
London, England

March 11, 2018
T&D manager
Colonial
London (45678)
Respected Sir,
I’m writing this clear cover letter in response to given advertisement for the Assistant
manager position. In a response, I am interested for working with Thomas Cook and also have
faith that my given qualifications, education & skills are sufficient and proper as per profile
requirements.
I am very much professional in an expert communication who are tasked for working
on self development for future time to make this skill and exposure's perfect for the long term
career in the Thomas Cook. I also have other potential such as development of the people,
handling of the the team, potential to get urgent solutions of critical problems as well as
driving team performance.
To have proper information of my profile, I disclosed my curriculum vitae attached
with this cover letter, so that it will be convenient for you to look at my profile for relevancy
of the assistant manager profile. Finally, your decision will be acceptable by me.
Thank you
Kind regards,
Olive Peter
STEP 3
Strength and weaknesses of the whole experience:
Strengths: I have accomplished lots of big exposure, knowledge as well as skills through
my period of learning while, I was on internship in Thomas Cook. Also, Practical learning has
been undergone with ability to planning to enhance its results for longer period of time. I also
gained abilities to interact with different people or have clear communication with another one.
Weaknesses: I noticed that analytical learning was my one most weaknesses, that I
observed even after the internship. It is why, there were lots of aspects, which I needs to cover,
but unfortunately not entertained.

CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that professional development & practices
is an important aspects to be covered along with its increased individual durability and growth
measurement. It has been also concluded that development always comes from past experiences
and also experienced is important to be considered for better individual growth and productivity.
Learning style has been resulted into bringing learning style in an effective ways to enhance
person growth, potential and reliability. Development plan is important for finding future growth
opportunities as well as career development and career enhancement. Lastly, Curriculum vitae
has been resulted into access to person credentials and profiles.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
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professional identity formation and socialization of medical students and residents: a
guide for medical educators. Academic Medicine. 90(6). pp.718-725.
Edwards, J., 2015. Paths of professional development in music therapy: training, professional
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Goldie, J., 2012. The formation of professional identity in medical students: considerations for
educators. Medical teacher. 34(9), pp.e641-e648.
Hercelinskyj, G., 2014. Perceptions from the front line: Professional identity in mental health
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concept and professional identity. A discussion paper. Journal of Advanced Nursing.
70(2). pp.295-309.
Huston, C. J., 2013. Professional issues in nursing: Challenges and opportunities. Lippincott
Williams & Wilkins.
Izadinia, M., 2013. A review of research on student teachers' professional identity. British
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Johnson, M., 2012. Professional identity and nursing: contemporary theoretical developments
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Moss, J. M., Gibson, D. M. and Dollarhide, C. T., 2014. Professional identity development: A
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Pihl-Thingvad, S., 2015. Professional ideals and daily practice in journalism. Journalism. 16(3).
pp.392-411.
Pillen, M., Beijaard, D. and den Brok, P., 2013. Professional identity tensions of beginning
teachers. Teachers and Teaching. 19(6). pp.660-678.
Trede, F., Macklin, R. and Bridges, D., 2012. Professional identity development: a review of the
higher education literature. Studies in Higher Education. 37(3). pp.365-384.
Wald, H. S., 2015. Professional identity (trans) formation in medical education: reflection,
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Wenger-Trayner, E., 2014. Learning in landscapes of practice: Boundaries, identity, and
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Online
Overview of Learning Styles, 2018. [Online]. Available through: <https://www.learning-styles-
online.com/overview/>