Career Planning Report: Career Goals and Skills - BPD3100 Report

This career planning report presents a comprehensive self-assessment of a student's skills, values, and career aspirations. The report begins with a value audit, identifying key personal values such as integrity, responsibility, and leadership, and explaining their importance in career decision-making. It then details the student's hard skills, including financial reporting, risk management, and financial planning, and how these skills align with their desired career in auditing and financial accounting. The report further explores the student's capabilities, including communication, organization, teamwork, and customer service skills, providing examples of how these skills have been demonstrated through academic projects, volunteer work, and personal experiences. An elevator pitch is included, summarizing the student's qualifications and career goals. A SWOT analysis is also provided, outlining the student's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in their career path. Finally, the report includes a list of references supporting the analysis and an appendix with the SWOT analysis.

Career Planning Report
Student’s Name:
Student’s ID:

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Value Audit
The five personal values that impact my life choices are integrity, responsibility, leadership,
perseverance and collaboration.
Consideration of values is critical to career management because the values act as guidance
while making decisions and choosing career options (Özçelik, Aybas and Uyargil, 2016).
Personal values seem to be beneficial for making clear career goals and enhance effectiveness
(Donohue and Tham, 2019).
The field of work that I propose to pursue include auditing and financial accounting. I have
established five hard skills via my undergraduate course like preparing financial reports,
preparing e-portfolio, risk management, financial planning and process of audit. These hard
skills will help me in the field of work in different ways. Risk management assists in
understanding and reducing risks. Financial planning and report help in getting accurate
information and manage the work.
Capability audit
It is essential to have the ability to communicate efficiently in the field of employment. Strong
communication skill is not only beneficial for improving quality but also for developing
teamwork along with employee relations (Robles, 2012). As I have to hold a charity or donation
project, I get the opportunity to communicate with diverse people. I found that effective
communication would assist me in gaining clients and hence, raise more money for the company.
In addition, strong and efficient communication would make the team unite while drawing up a
plan for the complex projects.
Moreover, organization and administrative ability is the other selection criterion used by the
employers. It is observed that good organization and administrative skills are crucial for
controlling the project schedule as well as increasing quality and effectiveness. As an accounting
manager of the university, I learned how to manage and organize tasks or reports to get reliable
outcomes. I have also learned how to allocate each task and organize all activities to develop the
relationship between other departments. As per Smart (2004), a well-organized individual seems
to be more productive with the work.

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Furthermore, the ability to work as part of the group is a significant selection criterion for the
employers as it helps in determining the success or failure of the project. During my second
semester at the university, I have engaged in a project with the six team members from the
different cultural background. Being a team member, I serve common goals and trust the team
members. I act as a leader of the team and allocate the different task to each team member, which
enhance my leadership and management skills. The group overcome several complications
together and performed an efficient role in completing the project. I have applied my problem-
solving and teamwork skills when completing the project with the inter-disciplinary team. At
last, the project has been completed successfully. Besides this, the University runs a professional
development programme to allow the students to work cohesively to suggest business ideas and
crack business issues.
Moreover, effective customer service skills are critical to enhance customer sales along with
build a reputation (MacDermott and Ortiz, 2017). Last year, I run an online clothing store, and I
found that a large number of people were unknown about the store. However, I keep patience
and positively answer all queries of customers. It helped me to build a good reputation and
attract more consumers. I learned from my experience that treating customers with patience and
positive way is the key to develop customer service skills such as showing empathy and creating
rapport.
The ability to manage projects is critical for defining clear goals for the project and setting a
planned schedule (Ortiz, Region-Sebest and MacDermott, 2016). At the end of my semester, my
college held a New Year party, and I got an opportunity to schedule as well as manage projects.
At first, I defined the scope of the project and made comprehensive goals that need to be
achieved. I developed work allocation by involving all the team members and track the overall
process while cooperating with other groups. I effectively manage the projects and enhance my
capability through the experience.
Communication is an important skill that I want to develop further as it is considered as vital in
all business environment. I feel quite nervous while communicating with clients or any unknown
person. Hence, I need to strengthen my communication skills. I will adopt an online course on
listening and communication skills and ignore depend on visual aids. I would ask for honest and
appropriate feedback from others to improve my skills. I will read more books to enhance my

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knowledge and gain confidence. I have to focus on using eye contact and maintaining body
language while interacting with others to enhance communication. I need to find a part-time job
as I believe that it is an effective way to communicate with different individuals and overcome
nervousness.
Graduate Elevator Pitch
Hi, my name is (student’s name), and I am an undergraduate at the University of Southern
Queensland with a means of experience in auditing, financial accounting, leadership and risk
management skills. I am in search of opportunities in the area of banking and finance
corporations. Besides this, my strong academic performance makes me a desired applicant to
join the desired sector. I possess an essential understanding of the significance of reducing risks
for the organization as well as the clients. During my academic course, I have completed a
project in an interdisciplinary team by executing my hard and soft skills. My personal values,
such as integrity, responsibility, leadership, perseverance and collaboration, laid a good
foundation for me to join the team in your company. Different skills are acquired from university
courses which include preparing financial reports, risk management, financial planning, audit
process and preparing e-portfolio which are vital for company success (McCollough, Devezer
and Tanner, 2016).
In addition, I have acquired various soft skills such as problem-solving, communication,
teamwork and interpersonal skills. The soft skills assist in managing all working activities and
communicating problems with others (Simpson, 2016). I have worked voluntarily in the
university as accounts manager that help me in managing all accounting works and enhancing
my skills. During the semester, I intrigued a fund-raising event with my group members for
donation, which applied my communication skills. I expect my ability as well as understanding
have been pleasing sufficient to meet you as I am quite confident that I could add value to the
company.

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References
Donohue, R. and Tham, T.L., 2019. Career Management in the 21st Century. Contemporary
HRM Issues in the 21st Century, Emerald Publishing Limited, pp.51-68.
MacDermott, C. and Ortiz, L., 2017. Beyond the business communication course: A historical
perspective of the where, why, and how of soft skills development and job readiness for business
graduates. IUP Journal of Soft Skills, 11(2), pp.7-24.
McCollough, M.A., Devezer, B. and Tanner, G., 2016. An alternative format for the elevator
pitch. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 17(1), pp.55-64.
Ortiz, L.A., Region-Sebest, M. and MacDermott, C., 2016. Employer perceptions of oral
communication competencies most valued in new hires as a factor in company success. Business
and Professional Communication Quarterly, 79(3), pp.317-330.
Özçelik, G., Aybas, M. and Uyargil, C., 2016. High performance work systems and
organizational values: Resource-based view considerations. Procedia-Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 235(24), pp.332-341.
Robles, M.M., 2012. Executive perceptions of the top 10 soft skills needed in today’s
workplace. Business communication quarterly, 75(4), pp.453-465.
Simpson, D., 2016. “Going up?” A sport psychology consultant's guide to the elevator
speech. Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 7(2), pp.109-120.
Smart, K.L., 2004. Articulating skills in the job search: Proving by example. Business
Communication Quarterly, 67(2), pp.198-205.

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Appendix
Career SWOT Analysis
Strengths Weaknesses
 Education (strong academic performance
and obtain knowledge of various working
fields)
 Outstanding management and organizing
skills
 Critical thinking ability and possess hard
skills
 Strong problem-solving skills
 Volunteer work experience (financial
reports, risk management and handling
projects)
 Feel nervous while communicating with
strangers
 Ineffective communication skills
Opportunities Threats
 Encounter new challenges in diverse
accounting field
 Chosen career path provide ample
opportunities
 Passionate about audit or law that offer
change to another field
 Leverage effective networking skills
 High competition from other graduates
 May not be selected in the desired company
due to existing economic conditions