BMS502 - Work Related Learning: Reflective Assessment of Careers

This essay presents a reflective assessment of key competencies, career prospects, and progression opportunities for a graduate student in Business & Management (BMS502). It includes a personal audit of strengths, weaknesses, skills, attributes, and attitudes relevant to future career progression. The essay justifies specific career pathways realistically open to the student in the short, medium, and long term, considering their competencies. It also identifies potential progression activities and associated barriers that could arise after graduation. The reflection incorporates insights from academic sources, including books and journals, to support the analysis of personal development and career planning.

Reflective Piece

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Reflective Essay.....................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
MAIN BODY
Reflective Essay
Being a graduate student it is very important for me being a student to decide my career
paths before stepping into them and looking for new opportunity. The key competencies plays a
very important role and also in order to actually understand the correct future career and
progression it is important to actually understand my own personal key strengths, weaknesses,
attitudes, skills and attributes which will help me in contributing towards the future progression
and imminent my career during my graduate employment (Wagner and Kieran, 2018). The key
competencies basically involves the unique and special capabilities that basically a recruiter
consider why looking for a suitable candid date for the employment opportunity. In order to find
out my competencies in order analyse my career in future scenario. I have realised that when it
comes to strength i am very good at being fully responsible for my personal operations. In
addition to that i feel that my communication skills are also a plus point as i have good
vocabulary and also i have proper knowledge and skills and i very well know how to
communicate in a effective and efficient way. In addition to that when it comes to opportunities,
my team work spirit will help me to survive in a tough situation and also team work plays a very
important role in mostly every career as teams work more efficiently as compare to individuals.
Moreover, my leadership quality will be really helpful for me in my future jobs as leadership
allows in influencing the behaviour of people by making them strive voluntarily towards
attainment of organisational goals and objectives (Magnavita and Chiorri, 2018).
When it comes to threats and my weaknesses, i really need to work on my decision
making skills in order to achieve my objectives and goals as decision making is very important in
order to achieve goals in any organisation and that can be only possible through quick decision
making skills and capabilities (Panicker and Gayathri, 2019).In addition to this, i need to work
on my commercial awareness skills as this will otherwise create a barrier for me after completing
my graduation. As being a student i lack in the knowledge and understanding of how the
1

business and industries work. This might acts as a threat for me in the coming future. In
commercial awareness it really helps in better understanding of the facts and figures that are
going into the world and also it might affect the operations of the organisation or business. In
order to choose a right career path it is very important for me understand and audit my personal
positive and negative attributes as it will help me contributing towards my career and future
progression into graduate employment (Chauhan, Agrawal, and Meena, 2019).
Moreover, the list of opportunities and capabilities will help me in better determining the
options and availabilities which will help me in guiding towards the objectives and aims. In
addition to that, recognizing my own threat will help me in both my professional and personal
path that helps me in building a defensive proper plan and also help in facing barriers and
obstacles and also will help in getting prepared for the unexpected challenges. Also through
proper swot analysis it will help me in providing a clear picture of the objectives and also
figuring out the shortcomings. It will also help me to be ready for the possible challenge that
might arises in future. Furthermore, being a student it is important for me to be very particular
about the strengths and weakness in order to achieve objectives in a timely manner and also
seizing more opportunities as a student. It helps in implementing changes in the plan according
to my own competencies, it also helps in proper utilization of resources with having a clear
understanding of the final goals and objectives, keeping aware of the shortcomings and also
proper understanding and deep knowledge of the threats( Deepak and Ameer, 2019).
Through proper analysing of my strength, weakness, threat and opportunities, it will help
me to build on my current strengths. It will also help in enhancing my time management skills
with understanding my own self in a effective and better way through eradication of my
weakness. Through proper swot analysis, it will help me in facing the reality and to get a
opportunity to understand my goals in a better way. Through proper implementation it will help
in becoming more straightforward while implementing my own plans. In addition to that, it will
help in facing the reality and also in identification of the key areas where i need to work more. It
will help in pending down and proper planning in order for smooth operations in future
(Camargo, Dumas and González-Rojas, 2019).
When it comes to career prospects, it will help in better understanding of the future
chances and availabilities of the career according to my competencies and also helps in deep
understanding of the career path which are open for me in all the long, short and medium terms.
2

In deciding my career, my teachers played a very important role and also acted as a support
system in deciding for which career i should opt for. As i have keen interest in marketing and
human resource. In support of this various positions including managers, marketing specialist
and human resource managers and various other job roles would be suitable for me. In addition
to this, there is wide scope in both the fields and both have strong opportunities for me to choose
a career in. On the other hand when it comes to career progression opportunities, there are a wide
range of potential progression activities which are associated with the progression barriers which
could help in my studies. Though when it comes to career progression, the opportunities are
either nonexistent or limited. In addition to this, professional development plays a very important
role in the workplace and also plays a very important part in student’s life. Through career
progression, it actually helped me in finding a purpose. From the organisational perspective, the
career progression opportunities helps employees in making them feel the sense of growth and
improvement in the organisation and also provides a sense of purpose in order foster loyalty. It
also helps in increasing the rate of satisfaction.
The career development opportunities helps in looking forward to a specific plan. It also
helps in feeding the hunger of growth and learning both in the professional and personal life and
also helps in making feel about the job. Moreover, it also helps in decreasing the stress. A stress
usually makes the employees unhealthy and unhappy in the longer run and career progression
helps in giving a motivation factor to work towards making them feel more self assured and
confident leading to decrease in sense. Furthermore, it not only help in decreasing the stress level
but it also helps in creation of new opportunities as the career progression helps in fostering the
culture of sharing knowledge. It not only helps in creating opportunities but also enables to
discover new ideas and interest with in the organisation. The progression opportunities also helps
in boosting the productivity and engagement. When it comes to employees, when they feel
supported in the organisation, it helps in becoming more productive and engaged which leads to
creating a healthy and happy environment and the are ready to invest in a company for a longer
time period. When it comes to potential progression activities it basically involves the seminars,
receptions, trade shows , conferences and internally in larger offices (Winstone and Carless,
2019).
Through my teacher’s proper training and coaching it helped me a lot throughout in the
process of improving career progression. In addition to that, there are various common barriers to
3

the career progression that involves lack of time which involves common time management
hacks that involves delegation and automation. In addition to that it involves energy and money
in order to deal with the progression barriers. There are various personal barriers which are
involved in the career progressions which typically involves inability to communicate. In order
for me to survive in a job it is very important to have the ability to communicate as
communication skills plays a very important role in any career and in order to achieve goals in a
planned manner it is important to have the capability and ability to communicate in a better way.
Moreover, there is requirement of confidence and skills in order to survive in a new environment
as lack of confidence might create a barrier in the career progression. In addition to this a
positive attitude is essential in order to deal with other member in a organisation. The main
problem that usually occurs involves burnout and stress. In any field or job, the situations and
environment is unrealistic and unreasonable and you cannot expect or understand the future
outcomes so in a job it is important to have the right amount of confidence as sometimes it
become tough to handle situations and which lead to unnecessary burnout and stress.
Furthermore, there are various numerous factors which are involved in the career progression
that also involves personal barriers which leads to harming the employee’s advancement
potential. Through development and examination of these barriers, there are high chances of
progressing through chosen career path (Boss and Larmer, 2018).
Even though i might get into trouble because of unreasonable and unrealistic expectations
about my job that can lead to uncontrollable stress in my career (Li, Wang and Xue, 2018). In
order to survive, it is very important for me to believe in myself and to trust my capabilities
otherwise lack of confidence and self esteem can result in missing out the advancements and
opportunities in my career. In order to meet my goals and achievements it is important for me to
be assertive which acts as crucial job skill. In a career it is very important to have proper
communication skills and for conveying your desires and thoughts it is important to have
communication skills specially at workplaces. Lack of proper communication skills can lead to
hindering the chances of moving forward towards a job. In a workplace when supervisors and
employees communicate in a effective manner, there is high chances of retention and promotion
(Mahir, Akhter and Huq, 2019).
CONCLUSION
4

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Boss, S. and Larmer, J., 2018. Project based teaching: How to create rigorous and engaging
learning experiences. ASCD.
Camargo, M., Dumas, M. and González-Rojas, O., 2019, September. Learning accurate LSTM
models of business processes. In International Conference on Business Process
Management (pp. 286-302). Springer, Cham.
Chauhan, G. S., Agrawal, P. and Meena, Y. K., 2019. Aspect-based sentiment analysis of
students’ feedback to improve teaching–learning process. In Information and
Communication Technology for Intelligent Systems (pp. 259-266). Springer, Singapore.
Cheng, K. H. and Tsai, C. C., 2019. A case study of immersive virtual field trips in an
elementary classroom: Students’ learning experience and teacher-student interaction
behaviors. Computers & Education, 140, p.103600.
Deepak, S. and Ameer, P. M., 2019. Brain tumor classification using deep CNN features via
transfer learning. Computers in biology and medicine, 111, p.103345.
Li, D., Wang, Z. and Xue, Y., 2018, May. Fine-grained android malware detection based on deep
learning. In 2018 IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS) (pp.
1-2). IEEE.
Magnavita, N. and Chiorri, C., 2018. Academic stress and active learning of nursing students: A
cross-sectional study. Nurse Education Today, 68, pp.128-133.
Mahir, E. M., Akhter, S. and Huq, M. R., 2019, June. Detecting fake news using machine
learning and deep learning algorithms. In 2019 7th International Conference on Smart
Computing & Communications (ICSCC) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Panicker, S. S. and Gayathri, P., 2019. A survey of machine learning techniques in physiology
based mental stress detection systems. Biocybernetics and Biomedical
Engineering, 39(2), pp.444-469.
Wagner, S. and Kieran, C., 2018. An agenda for research on the learning and teaching of algebra.
In Research issues in the learning and teaching of algebra (pp. 220-237). Routledge.
Winstone, N. and Carless, D., 2019. Designing effective feedback processes in higher education:
A learning-focused approach. Routledge.
Yadav, A. and Vishwakarma, D. K., 2020. Sentiment analysis using deep learning architectures:
a review. Artificial Intelligence Review, 53(6), pp.4335-4385.
5

6