Career Management Assignment: Interview, Reflection, and Strategy

This assignment, completed for a Professional Masters in Career Management, presents a comprehensive analysis of career development through various lenses. It begins with a detailed summary of a professional informational interview with a manager from a local construction company, focusing on the interviewee's background, daily duties, goals, strategies, challenges, motivational techniques, and management style. The assignment then delves into a reflective journal, summarizing insights gained about professional growth, teamwork, and skill development, including areas for improvement in communication and open-mindedness. Finally, the assignment concludes with a critical overview and strategy, building on the interview and reflection to identify essential skills for becoming an industry expert, such as organizational, communication, confidentiality, adaptability, and negotiation skills. The author emphasizes the importance of time management, goal setting, and burden management strategies to enhance professional capabilities and achieve career success, including leadership skill application.

Running Head: CAREER MANAGEMENT
CAREER MANAGEMENT

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Table of content
Journal 1: Professional Informational Interview – In Civil Engineering........................................3
Journal 2 & 3: Reflective Journal summary....................................................................................3
Journal 4: Critical overview and strategy........................................................................................5

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Journal 1: Professional Informational Interview – In Civil Engineering
I had interviewed a manager of local Construction Company in Australia and his name was John,
Mayer. It was a great experience and I have gained a huge amount of knowledge from it. He has
worked as a junior computer tech for 2 years and after that he has gained experience of 5 years as
an engineering manager in local Construction Company.
The first question I asked him in the interview to tell me about you. He replied that his name is
John Mayer and he lives in Australia and has worked as a junior computer tech for 2 years and
has gained experience of 5 years as an engineering manager in local Construction Company in
Australia. The second question I asked him about his day to day duties. John's daily task was to
assign work and to give guidance to his employees in order to get work done. I also asked him
about his goals and his team members. He replied that our main goal to complete the work by the
end of the month on specified time (Jackson, 2016). I also asked him about his strategy for
completing the work; He replied that his strategy in order to achieve the goal is giving proper
guidance to his employees throughout the work. Next question I asked him the challenges faced
by him. John answered that as a manager every day he has to deal with the problems and also
stated that their company's main aim is to finish the work on time and has faced many issues
while completing the task on time and in the given budget. Another question I asked John was
different methods and processes to motivate the workers, John's answered that to motivate his
employee he would make sure that they all are feeling comfortable and happy. He said that he
would make sure that all his employees would be treated fairly. Then, I asked John about his
management style (Ronnie, 2016), he replied that he always believed in establishing a good team

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by clearly describing each member about their roles and responsibilities and also believe in
feedback.
In my opinion, John Mayer was a positive and a good Manager. He had self-confidence,
determination, energy and a great management style. I believe that he and his team will work
great in future. During the interview, I asked John about the skills that are mandatory to become
a successful manager (Helyer, 2015); he answered that good leadership skills and ability to
resolve conflicts are the main skills that are mandatory to become a good manager and to make
the company successful (Plakhotnik, 2017).
Questions asked during the interview:
● Tell me about yourself?
● What are your day to day duties?
● What are your goals and your team members?
● What is your strategy in order to complete the task?
● What are the challenges you faced while completing the task?
● What are the different methods and processes to motivate the workers?
● What is your management style?
● What skills are mandatory to become a successful manager?
Journal 2 & 3: Reflective Journal summary
As a student, I always look forward to move towards growth. I have learned the way of viewing
the resume of an individual in order to hire the best-skilled candidates according to the
requirements of the position. I came to know about the process of a company in order to select

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the perfect packages for the employees which enabled the company to move towards the growth.
It also enabled me to research the business market in order to calculate the current payroll
tendency and have enabled the organization to move towards growth. I get to know that working
in a team is a very interesting work. Working in a team will enables me to increase my
knowledge and involvement in the planning of a project or event. I have advanced my sense of
responsibility and also gain the skill of taking burdens (Deveugele, 2015). I found that working
in a team will enable me become more confident and allows me to know the group members by
talking to them. I have learned that my superiors also started a system in order to help their
organization in the process of managing communication between the employees in order to
create a strong team that helps in providing the task more effectively and efficiently. It also made
me understand that working in team will enable me to feel easier and to stay organized. Working
in a team will enable me to complete the task with the deadline and also get to know that a tough
task can also be finished easily with the help of a team within the deadline because it makes the
task interesting. I found that I will able to accept the risk and pressure even without any tension.
I found that working in a team and in a group will increases my ability to face challenges without
the fear of failure and also enabled me to have faith and trust in other team members. I
understood that I should respect others' opinions without disrespecting them. I found that it will
increase my ability in resolving the issues.
I have also found some negatives things in me during working in a team that needs to be
developed. There is a lack of communication skills in me that needs to be developed which will
help me in clearly communicating the goals of the company (Cathro, et al., 2017). I should share
my opinion and ideas clearly that make others understand and should inform the team about new

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information so that they can also amend the plan accordingly. I should not be scared of sharing
bad news with my co-workers. I have learned that in order to work in a team in need to
communicate effectively and efficiently. I get to know that while working in a team an individual
needs to share all the new ideas and techniques with other team members (Matsuo, 2018). I have
to listen others point of view in order to become a good listener. I have also learned that I should
talk positively about the ideas and thoughts of other team members and should amend those
ideas which will increase the self-confidence of others and also improve the workflow process
that results in increase in morale of the employees. I need to improve my day to day work by
making proper schedule for meetings, works, tasks, team assignments, and projects. I should
become open-minded with new experiments. I came to understand that new experiments will
enable me to overcome my fear of failure and provide an opportunity to do something creative
and new. I get to understand that every experiment may not result in success but trying is a key
to success. I should create a positive and healthy environment for other team members and
working together as a team will bring the company to a positive position. I have to be patient in
order to work in a team and should not overreact on small issues. I should not interfere in others'
lives and works I need to become more creative and should try to create things more interesting
and out of the box (Bassot, 2016).
Journal 4: Critical overview and strategy
I had interviewed a manager of local Construction Company in Australia and his name was john,
Mayer. It was a great experience and I have gained a huge amount of knowledge from it. In the
organization, I have also learned the way of viewing the resume of an individual in order to hire

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the best-skilled candidates according to the requirements of the position. I have researched the
business market in order to calculate the current payroll tendency and have enabled the
organization to move towards growth. While working in a team I understood that I should
respect others' opinions without disrespecting them. I found that it has increased my ability in
resolving the issues. I have learned that working in a team enables me become more confident
and allows me to know the group members by communicating with them effectively. I found that
I was able to accept the risk and pressure even without any tension while working in a team
(Charmaz, 2015). In order to work in a team and to become a good team member, I need to
communicate properly with each and every member of the team by sharing own experiences and
stories with them. It also made me feel easier and to stay organized. Working in a team enabled
me to complete the task with the deadline and also get to know that a tough task can also be
finished easily with the help of a team within the deadline because it makes the task interesting. I
need to become more creative and should try to create things more interesting and out of the box.
In order to become an industry expert, it is very important to have organizational skills in order
to perform as a connector between employee and management. Communication skills are the
most important skill one should have to become an expert, in order to manage others I have to
communicate effectively with others so that they can understand my point clearly (Bowen &
Ostroff, 2016). In order to share information communication skills is important. Confidentiality
skills are also an essential skill because many employees share their personal problems with the
team members which one should keep as secret. In order to keep the information confidential this
skill is important (Jackson, 2016). To become an industry expert I should have adaptability skills
in order to adapt to change easily in the workplace and also have multitasking ability like
resolving the issues, guiding others, recruitments task, handling the personal issues of the

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employees, managing the organization, etc. Negotiation capability is also important during the
interview at the time of offering salary to the candidates.
There are many skills that are required to become successful in life and I need to improve such
skills according to the task requirements. During the identification of my skills that are important
to improve, I came to realize that negotiation is one the most important skill that needs to
develop by doing market research to know the payroll tendency (Cottrell, 2017). Time refers to
one of the most important resources than money and I have to manage time at the workplace in
order to do different kinds of work at a time. It refers to a process of development of skills that
will increase the productivity and overall development of the company and me as well. By
setting goals and SMART objectives I can easily manage the work environment that will
increase my management skills. Setting goals and objectives is an important strategy that will
improve my management skills for which I need to make a list of tasks in order to accomplish in
a day. Burden arises due to the huge quantity of work which results in pain, stress, bad mood,
etc. In order to improve my capacity to bear the burden without any stress I have to schedule the
task on the basis of urgency of the task. In order to adopt professional skills that are required to
achieve career goal I need to improve my multitasking and decision-making skills by
maintaining a record of all projects of all employees and by scheduling the task according to the
urgency of such task (Cardoso-Leite, et al., 2015). To become successful in my career and to
become an industry expert I need to apply leadership skills. In order to lead the company, I need
to make proper and effective decisions that will help me to achieve my targets. This will also
increase my managerial skills in order to manage target in future (Brockbank & McGill, 2017). I
need to improve my technical skills by upgrading my knowledge according to the requirements

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of changes in the workplace. I need to make a plan for my career goals that will help me in
identifying my progress otherwise without a plan for success I will feel rudderless.
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