Planning Your Career in Business: Portfolio Development Project

This assignment is a comprehensive career planning portfolio, designed to assist in the development of a business career. The portfolio begins with an introduction outlining its components, including a personal statement, a detailed CV, and a self-assessment using a SWOT analysis. Section A explains the purpose of the portfolio, the personal statement, and the CV, highlighting their roles in showcasing skills, experience, and career goals. Section B presents the personal statement, articulating the student's aspirations to become a marketing manager at Tesco Plc, emphasizing relevant skills and academic background. It includes details of their interest in the retail sector and the company. The CV is also included, summarizing the student's academic qualifications, internship experience, and key skills. Section C focuses on self-assessment through a SWOT analysis, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to career development. An action plan is then provided, outlining steps to address skill gaps and achieve career objectives. The portfolio concludes with a summary of the key findings and a list of references. The student aims to secure a marketing manager role at Tesco Plc, leveraging their skills and experience in the retail sector.

Planning Your Career
in Business

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
SECTION A.....................................................................................................................................1
What the portfolio contains and the reason for both the personal statement and the CV...........1
Overview of the chosen organization and peculiar interests in working in such a place...........2
SECTION B.....................................................................................................................................3
Personal statement.......................................................................................................................3
A detailed CV that has been carefully designed to fit purpose ..................................................4
SECTION C.....................................................................................................................................5
Self-assessment reflecting skill gaps (SWOT Analysis inclusive).............................................5
Action plan tailored towards your skill development.................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
References:.....................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Skills and knowledge of an individual plays an important role in their personal and
professional development and these skills and knowledge can be gained through the academic
learning or education along with working experience. It is found as essential for an individual to
constantly work on their skills to upgrade them and use them to perform the organisational
operations in an effective and efficient manner. Business is defined as the collection of all those
activities which are being performed for the purpose of earning profit. In order to develop the
career in business in an effective and efficient manner, the individual is required to develop
several skills and gain experience which are found as essential for the performance of all
activities of business (AlMarwani, 2020). This report is based on the development of career of an
individual in the business. Majorly it include portfolio of individual which involve several
components such as SWOT analysis, CV, personal analysis and many more.
SECTION A
What the portfolio contains and the reason for both the personal statement and the CV
A portfolio is defined as the collection of several materials which basically explains the
skills, beliefs, education, training, experience, qualification of individual and many more. The
major purpose of preparation of portfolio is to provide an insight into the personality along with
the work ethics as well. An effective portfolio help the individual in presenting their skills,
qualification, leaning and knowledge in front of the employer in most understandable manner.
The portfolio of an individual involve several component as it is defined as the collection of
materials stating about the several skills and knowledge about them. The portfolio which is going
to be prepared in this report also include various elements which include statement of originality,
work philosophy, career goals and CV (Almutairi and et. al., 2022). Statement of originality
section include the explanation related to the work or task. This section majorly involve all the
tasks and functions which are being performed by the individual while working on the specific
role or profile. The section of work philosophy is defined as the description of the beliefs related
to the individual. It is also known as the personal analysis as it describe the entire skills,
knowledge and learning of the individual. Along with this, it also state the beliefs of individual
related to the industry in which the individual is planning to develop their career. The next
component of personal portfolio is career goals which are developed by the individual in
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attaining the goals in the next upcoming years. CV is found as the other essential component of
personal portfolio of individual. CV of an individual involve the overview of the entire skills and
work experience of an individual.
The main reason behind the preparation of personal statement is to gaining the clarity
along with focusing on the creation of pathway to where the individual is going. It is found as
crucial step for an individual to evaluate and understand the strengths, weakness, transferable
skills, interest, priorities, passion and values of themselves before starting the search of job or
starting any business (Andani, Nugraha and Supena, 2019). While preparing personal statement,
several of individuals undertake psychometric tests, create their own desirables and essentials,
analyse transferable skills and many more. It help in analysing the skills and beliefs of individual
related to the particular job role or the specific field in which the individual want to develop their
career.
CV is defined as the detailed document which highlight the history of an individual
related to their professionalism along with the academics as well. Basically, it involve the
detailed information related to the work experience, education, achievements and projects,
qualifications, skills, projects and many more. The major reason behind the preparation of CV is
to present the summarise the academics, personal and professional achievements for the purpose
of stimulate the hiring manager while applying for any new job opportunity. The portfolio of an
individual majorly involve CV with the objective of communicating with the recruiter related to
any particular job which also provide logical career path to the individual which result in the
development of career of individual in an effective and efficient manner.
Overview of the chosen organization and peculiar interests in working in such a place
The chosen organisation for this report is Tesco Plc which is a British multinational
groceries and general merchandise retailer having headquarter in Welwyn Garden City,
Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom. This company is found as the third largest retailer
company in the world. It is a multinational company which is performing their business
operations with more than 345000 colleagues (Tesco Plc, 2022). The major aim of the
management of Tesco is to provide the daily use items at affordable prices long with offering the
sustainable and healthy food to their customers in order to making the life of customers more
easy and better quality as well (Borg, 2021).
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I would like to develop my career as an marketing manager in the Tesco Plc. I develop
my interest in this field or in this particular company because of several reasons which are as
follow: Multinational Brand: Tesco Plc is a multinational company which is performing its
business operations in retail industry in several countries including United Kingdom,
Ireland, India, Malaysia and many more. The performance of business operations on
such a huge scale leads to the generation of higher revenue. It has been analysed that
the brand image of organisation also leads to the higher availability of opportunity for
my career.
 Interest in retail sector: Tesco Plc is working in the retail industry and I have interest
in the retail sector. I want to join the retail industry because I have done research on
the retail industry. It help me in better understanding my operations and tasks which I
have to perform in the business organisation.
 Higher growth opportunity:It has been found that the employees of Tesco plc are
constantly working on their skills and knowledge as the management is providing
proper training to their employees, so that they can bring advancement in themselves.
After working with Tesco plc, I will also be able to grab the higher career growth and
development opportunities.
SECTION B
Personal statement
I want to attain the job role of marketing manager in the Tesco Plc which is a
multinational brand of supermarkets, hypermarkets an many more. The respective business
organisation is performing very well in the retail industry which is really beneficial for the
development and growth of my career. The job role of marketing manager is perfect for the
appropriate growth of my career because of several skills available in me. Along with this, my
academic learnings are also appropriate for the respective job role (Chun-Ping and Kuo, 2021). I
have completed my diploma in sales and marketing field which help me in gaining the skills of
influencing customers to buy the particular or specific products and services. After that I have
completed my graduation degree in retail sector. Through this course, I have develop several
skills which are helpful in performing the marketing activities in retail sector in an effective and
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efficient manner. In addition to this, I have also completed my masters in marketing field from
London University. It was the changing point in my life as I learned almost the entire concept of
marketing including analysis of target market, influencing people, developing marketing
strategies, managing the entire team of marketers and many more. Through the life of my
academic learnings, I learned the entire concepts related to the marketing as I have completed my
studies in marketing field only. The major reason behind the selection of this respective job role
is my interest and my academic course in which I have learned several skills and knowledge
related to the marketing stream or field such as analysing the requirements of customers,
analysing target market, developing effective relationship with the customers and many more.
Through my initial stage of learning, I was interested in marketing field and it is the reason
behind making the selection of job role of marketing manager. Through performing the function
of marketing manager in the retail industry, I can work with my interest and academics along
with enhancing my available skills as well. Just after completing my masters, I performed an
internship with the Asda company which is a British supermarket chain having headquarter in
Leeds, United Kingdom as a marketing executive (Green and et. al., 2022). The experience
gained from the internship of marketing executive from Asda is relevant to the job profile of
marketing manager in Tesco Plc. This internship experience is helpful in understanding the role
and function of marketing manager of Tesco in an effective and efficient manner. In addition to
this, the knowledge which I gained during my courses are highly relevant to the required skills
and knowledge of marketing manager. Along with this, II also develop more skills within myself
such as communication skills, listening skills and many more which are found as essential to
have in an individual to effectively perform the functions and role of marketing manager of retail
industry. All of the above mentioned skills and academic courses are relevant to the requirement
of skills and knowledge for the job profile of marketing manager in the retail industry. Hence, it
can be said that the I am the perfectly fit candidate for the respective job role.
A detailed CV that has been carefully designed to fit purpose
Curriculum vitae
ABC
Contact Number: XXXX-XX-XXXX
Mail ID: [e-mail]
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Address: xyz street, London, United Kingdom
Personal Summary:
A proven leader with the passion and dedication which is required for the purpose of driving the
new business leads by applying several new and attractive marketing strategies. I am a well
organised and personable person with the passion of bringing innovation and thrive the use of
latest techniques of marketing with high creativity. Presently, I am looking for the company
where I can work hard with loyalty and I get recognition and appreciation in exchange.
Academic Qualification:
Diploma in marketing
Bachelor degree in sales and marketing
Masters in Business and Administration (Marketing)
Internship Experience:
6 months summer internship as marketing executive with Asda (A retail company)
Personal and Professional Skills:
 Passionate
 Forward Thinking
 Hard Working
 Focused
 Multi-language speaker
Key Skills and Competencies:
 Development of effective and strong relationship with customers
 Written, verbal, presentation and analytical skills
 Consenting with travelling nation and international for the purpose of meeting the
clients.
 Ability to perform several tasks and manage them in an effective and efficient manner.
SECTION C
Self-assessment reflecting skill gaps (SWOT Analysis inclusive)
The hiring manager of a business organisation have to analyse the skills and knowledge
of an individual while doing recruitment of any particular job role in the organisation. In order to
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meet the skills requirements of the job role, the individual is required to analyse their strengths
and weakness through performing the self assessment. Th individual can apply SWOT analysis
model in order to do self assessment. SWOT analyses is a model which is being adopted by the
individuals in order to analyse the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats (Greenway,
2022). It help the individual in doing the self assessment in an effective and efficient manner.
Below mentioned is my SWOT analyses which is highlighting my strengths, weaknesses along
with the opportunities and threats as well:
Strengths Weaknesses Creative: I have skills to do something
creative which can be consider as my
strength. Through the use of my
creative skills, I can effectively develop
the creative strategies of marketing
which can attract the higher number of
customers. It result in the highly
impressing the clients through the
attractive perspective on brand. Communication: I realise that I have
good communication skills which are
also my strength, as I can use my
communication skills for
communicating with my team members
and clients as well.
 Time management: I am not so good in
managing the time while performing
several activities. I usually not able to
meet the deadlines of the projects
because of several activities
performance.
 Nervousness: I get too nerves, when I
have several tasks to perform. I also
feel nervous and fear when I speak in
public.
Opportunities Threats Getting job as marketing manager:
There are several companies which are
currently hiring for the marketing
manager. It seems that I have good
opportunity for starting my career in
the relevant field.
 Less strong skills than other students:
I found that I have less stronger skills
within me as compared to the other
students in my class. They have higher
communication skills than me.
 Current economic environment: Due
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 Less competition: It has been analysed
that the marketing manager of other
companies working in the retail
industry are not able to develop
effective marketing strategies and I
have skills to develop the same. It is
also an opportunity for me to perform
in the retail sector.
to COVID-19, several of companies
fire there employees and they are not
hiring for any fresh talent. It is the
threat for me to get the goof
opportunity.
Personal skill audit
Personal audit skills help me in analysing my weaker skills. My personal skills audit help
me in analysing the gap among the skills and get to know about the skills on which I have to
work to develop (Li and Deng, 2019). Below mentioned table is the table of my skills audit
which is showing the ratings as per the availability of skills with in myself:
Skills/
competencies/
abilities
Bad Average Good Excellent
Creativity skills *
Decision making
skills
*
Time
management
skills
*
Communication
skills
*
Team Working
skills
*
Leadership *
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Action plan tailored towards your skill development
SKILLS SIGNIFICANCE HOW IT CAN BE
DEVELOPED
JUDGING
CRITERIA
TIME
DURATION
Creativity
Skills
As a marketing
manager, it is
necessary to develop
creative skills as it
will attract the
customers towards the
business organisation
(Li and Deng, 2021).
Higher the creativity
in marketing activities
result in the higher
attraction of people. It
can be said that the
creativity in
marketing is essential
to perform the
activities in an
effective and efficient
manner.
I can develop the
creativity skills
within myself by
analysing the
strategies of
marketing of the
competitive
companies.
Through analysing
the creativity of
competitors, I can
analyse the level of
creativity and
working or
thinking on the
same may result in
the involvement of
higher creativity in
the marketing
campaigns and
marketing activities
as well.
My creativity skills
in marketing
operations can be
judged by my
seniors. My seniors
provide me relevant
feedback which help
me in effective
working on the
addition of creativity
in marketing
operations as well.
Along with this,
increase or decrease
in attraction of
people towards the
organisation can also
be used to judge my
creativity skills.
4 months (By
September,
2022)
Decision
making
skills
In order to perform
the marketing
function, it is
I can develop this
skill by taking
training through
Feedback from
seniors help and the
result of situation
6 months (By
the starting of
November
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essential for me to
develop the quick
decision making skills
within myself as it
help me in taking the
effective decisions.
Decisions related to
the marketing
campaigns are
necessary to take on
time, so that they can
effectively influence
the people to buy the
products.
the senior as they
will guide me for
taking the effective
and quick decisions
in the critical
situations and
issues. Along with
his, by solving
several
hypothetical
situations and
making effective
decisions help me
in enhancing my
decision making
skills in more
effective manner.
help me in judging
my decision making
skills. I will get
feedback from my
seniors for the
purpose of judging
the decision making
skills while working
as the marketing
manager in a
business
organisation.
2022)
Time
managemen
t skills
The marketing
manager of a business
organisation of retail
industry have to
perform several tasks.
Hence it is essential
for me too manage all
the activities in the
time and cost
effective manner. In
order to perform all
the activities in the
effective manner, it is
crucial for me to
I will manage
several activities an
functions and
perform all the
functions by
meeting the
deadlines. It help
me in developing
the time
management skills
within me in an
effective and
efficient manner.
Meeting the
deadlines will help
me in judging the
development of time
management skills
within me.
3 months (By
the starting of
September,
2022)
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manage the time
according to it.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that the development of portfolio is
essential for an individual as it help the individual in better presenting themselves in front f the
recruiter. In order to develop the portfolio, the individual have to work on the several
components and documents while preparing the portfolio. The major portion of portfolio include
personal statement and CV. These are consider as the major components or elements of portfolio
of person. Personal statement explain all the experiences and courses which are being performed
by the individuals and they are relevant to their profession, for which they are applying. SWOT
analysis is a tool which is being adopted by the individual in order to analyse the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Through analysing all these components, the individual
can focus on their weaker sections and grab the opportunity by avoiding the threats along with
making the strengths more stronger. In addition to this, action plan is also prepared for the
purpose of planning about the development of those skills which are found as not sufficient or
enough to perform the operations of the respective job role.
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References:
Books and Journals
AlMarwani, M., 2020. Pedagogical potential of SWOT analysis: An approach to teaching critical
thinking. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 38, p.100741.
Almutairi and et. al., 2022. Determination of optimal renewable energy growth strategies using
SWOT analysis, hybrid MCDM methods, and game theory: A case study. International
Journal of Energy Research, 46(5), pp.6766-6789.
Andani, M.A., Nugraha, N. and Supena, A.N., 2019. Perencanaan Strategi Manajemen
Hubungan Pelanggan Untuk Meningkatkan Kepuasan dan Loyalitas Pelanggan dengan
Menggunakan Metode Importance Performance Analysis pada CV. Nepsindo.
Borg, M., 2021. Taxation of personal data: an analysis of current tax treatment, EU regulation,
and the OECD action plan (Bachelor's thesis, University of Malta).
Chun-Ping, W. and Kuo, C.Y., 2021. The development of augmented reality learning
applications for mobile devices-an example of a personal portfolio. In Smart Design,
Science and Technology (pp. 1-4). CRC Press.
Green and et. al., 2022. Despite The FDA’s Five-Year Plan, Black Patients Remain Inadequately
Represented In Clinical Trials For Drugs: Study examines FDA’s five-year action plan
aimed at improving diversity in and transparency of pivotal clinical trials for newly-
approved drugs. Health Affairs, 41(3), pp.368-374.
Greenway, C., 2022. Ask PAT: how the introduction and implementation of an e-portfolio
approach transformed the nature of student support and development. The Higher
Education Personal Tutors and Advisors Companion: Translating Theory Into Practice
to Improve Student Success, p.70.
Li, Y. and Deng, L., 2019. I am what I have written: A case study of identity construction in and
through personal statement writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 37,
pp.70-87.
Li, Y. and Deng, L., 2021. Disciplinarily capable and personally unique: Voicing disciplinary
identity in personal statement writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 50,
p.100949.
Oussii, A.A., Klibi, M.F. and Ouertani, I., 2019. Audit committee role: formal rituals or effective
oversight process?. Managerial Auditing Journal.
Zhang, C.A., Dai, J. and Vasarhelyi, M.A., 2018. The impact of disruptivetechnologies on
accounting and auditing education: how should the profession adapt?. The CPA
Journal, 88(9), pp.20-26.
Online
Tesco Plc, 2022 [Online] Available Through <https://www.tescoplc.com/about/>
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_05_1.htm
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