Professional Development: Creating a Competence Maintenance Plan

This assignment outlines a professional development plan focused on enhancing and maintaining professional competence. It begins with a self-assessment of personal knowledge and skills against industry competency standards, particularly in the field of digital marketing. The plan incorporates feedback from colleagues and supervisors to identify areas for improvement, such as digital marketing skills, communication abilities, and leadership qualities. The plan details specific opportunities and training, including Google AdWords, SEO, SEM, SMM, language training, and leadership development programs. Networking activities, such as attending digital summits and engaging on LinkedIn, are also emphasized for continuous learning and career advancement. The assignment also includes a short journal reflecting on the process of skills assessment, feedback integration, and goal setting, highlighting the importance of a systematic approach to professional development. Desklib offers a wealth of similar resources and solved assignments to aid students in their academic and professional journeys.

Running Head: Develop and Maintain Professional Competence
Develop and Maintain Professional
Competence
Professional Development Plan

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Table of Content
Personal Knowledge and Skills.................................................................................................................. 2
Knowledge & Skills as per the competency standard.......................................................................2
Feedback from Workplace Colleagues and supervisors..................................................................3
Appendix 1.......................................................................................................................................................... 4
Professional development Plan.................................................................................................................. 4
Professional development Opportunities/ Training.........................................................................4
Networking activities..................................................................................................................................... 5
Short Journal...................................................................................................................................................... 5

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Personal Knowledge and Skills
I have aspiration of making my career in the domain of digital marketing, and I would
like to be a part of the digital marketing team of an e-commerce company, preferably
Amazon.
Knowledge & Skills as per the competency standard
Skill required according to competency
standard
Skill already acquired
SEO Skills Have to acquire
SEM, Paid advertising skills Have to acquire
Sales Skill I think I am a born sales man, as projected
from my personal understanding of myself
and backed up by my earlier experiences.
Marketing Channel expertise Have to acquire
Ability to think objectively I always try to be as objective as possible
Data analytics Have to acquire
Creativity and other analytics Partially
Visual storytelling ability I am no doubt a great storyteller; have to
infuse it with the visual art though.
Likeable personality I am mostly liked by my peers, colleagues
and friends.
Skill of word press I have used word press during my college
days and created a website for college
project
Listening skills I already have this skill; this makes me a
good salesperson.
Designing skills Have to acquire
Social media skills Partially
In order to assess my Professional competency I looked for various online marketing
competency standards and also went through almost 100 job description for online
digital marketing profile. Based on all the collected information I compared the same
with my present competency, based on the comparison between required competency
and the present competency, I arrived at the skills which are needed to be acquired.

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Feedback from Workplace Colleagues and supervisors
It is rightly said that colleagues, Peers and supervisors play a pivotal role in giving a true
feedback of a person. Based on my interaction with one of my colleague and a
supervisor, the findings of the meeting were:
Jim Mason- (Colleague)
Jim had some really nice things to say to me, we shared same working space for over a
year while working in the capacity of sales executives for a digital agency:
 Very enthusiastic and particular about his work.
 A good team player and at times even a good group leader.
 Knack of sales, probably become one of the finest salesman and create a name for
discipline.
 Ability to read, understand and compile complex data into simple concepts.
 Hunger to learn and grow.
 Focussed on consistent learning.
 Great communication skills
Meeting with Jim was highly refreshing, and we were seated in an informal
environment, a coffee shop and the communication was flowing freely from both ends. I
mentioned to him explicitly that you have to be bluntly honest in giving me a true
feedback on the questions I ask him; I informed him this was an exercise which would
help me in my professional development. We sat and talk for over 90 minutes and the
feedback was hugely beneficial for me.
Mike Bryan (Supervisor)
Feedback from supervisors is important as they have both the good and bad things to
say about the person. In my case, the findings were as follows:
 Lack of discipline
 Should have more respect towards organization policies, procedures and chain
of command.
 Good decision making skills

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 Stage fear.
 Arrogant and rude when in stress.
 Lacks time management
 Excellent in sales.
 Good communication skills
 Great negotiation skills
 Always ready for new responsibilities.
 A truly fast learner.
 Great adaptability towards business technologies.
Mike was one of my supervisors with whom I had always shared a great rapport. Mike
always wished good for me and helped me in all walks of life. During my professional
journey too, Mike gave me some brilliant constructive advice to help me learn and grow.
I met Mike in his office, after booking an appointment. I simply asked him to be truthful,
honest and blunt with me so that I can improve, learn and grow.
Appendix 1
Professional development Plan
Professional development Opportunities/ Training
Timeframe Description of
opportunity/ Training
Skills/Competency to
develop
1 Year I need to enrol myself in the
training on Google ad
words, SEO,SEM,SMM
This will help in the
development of my digital
marketing skills
6 Months Here I would like to boast
my confidence in order to
overcome my stage fear.
The communication
training will help me in
getting over my stage fear
and speak confidently with
the top management
Strong communication and
persuasive skills
6 Months Language training I would like to learn
Spanish and Mandarin as
these are the two most
spoken language across the
globe

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2 Years Leadership development I would like to enrol myself
in leadership Program of
Adobe and learn the arts of
leadership to give impetus
to my future career
aspirations.
Networking activities
Timeframe Description of
Networking activities
Opportunity Professional
advantage
1 Year Events Being a part of various
digital summit events, help
me to get a good
understanding of what the
future holds for digital
marketing. Moreover, it
helps me in getting in touch
with a large number of
business stakeholders who
are innovators and
creators.
Perpetual Linked-In Linked-In being the largest
professional networking
site helps me to get in touch
with the industry leaders. I
also follow many HR
working in the e-commerce
and digital space in search
for a brilliant job
opportunity.
Short Journal
For me, feedback is extremely important, I learnt in the early stage of my career that
feedback helps the person to find the lacunae in his personality and gives him an
opportunity to learn and grow. In order to do so, I take feedback from the people who
know me really well; I have worked with those people and value their opinion. Based on
their feedback I do a skill assessment for my future aspirations, based on which I map
my training and professional development plan.
My learning style is inspired by the VARK model which includes visual, auditory,
reading/writing & kinesthetic. This model has helped me in covering all the dimension

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of finding gap to fill in my professional development plan. In addition to the model, I
was also active on social media, read a lot of blogs to identify and understand the skills
or the training I would require to development my professional development plan.
As mentioned in the Professional development plan, the three skills which I have to
acquire are: Digital marketing skills, communication skills & leadership development.
All the skills will help me in gaining a competitive edge over my competitors and peers.
For instance, acquiring skill in digital marketing will help me in gaining deep knowledge
on SEO, SEM, SMM, Paid marketing, social media, influencer marketing, and Google ad
words. All these modules will help me in starting my career with confidence and I will
be better equipped with knowledge before even entering the domain. In the similar
manner communication skill training will help me boast my presentation skills and also
help me in overcoming my fear of stage. Leadership in the present day is very crucial,
hence, leadership development training will help me in identifying the skills required to
become a transformational leader.
I am a strong believer of the saying “ Network is the net worth” , hence I focus on
building a network full of people with high relevancy and strong content which would
be of help to me in my professional development and learning. Hence, in order to build
my networking I attend various industry summits and I am always active on Linked-In.
Through these channels, I am able to get in touch with people who would help me in my
professional development, learning and growth.
I believe that this systematic approach, used in creating goals and the training or the
skill gap analysis will help me in being an asset to the organization. The similar process
can be utilized in the organization, where goals are created for the organization and
training is provided to achieve those goals. Hence, this exercise will help by creating a
foundation over which I can easy lay the pillars of my professional and carer
development.

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