Developing Skills and Knowledge for Graduate Challenge Success Report

This report serves as an executive summary, dissecting the vital skills and knowledge required for triumph in various graduate challenges. It meticulously explores the development of personal and professional competencies, including communication, teamwork, time management, and business acumen. The report navigates through the challenges of an apprentice scenario, a t-shirt design project, and a presentation, demonstrating how these skills can be applied to overcome obstacles. The introduction highlights the significance of these skills in both personal and professional spheres. The main body delves into each skill, providing practical examples of their application in the given challenges. An action plan is presented to enhance time management and team skills, addressing areas for improvement and ensuring a well-rounded skillset. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of ongoing self-assessment and skill development for future professional success.

Graduate Challenge
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Executive Summary
This report is aimed at discussing different skills and knowledge that a student is required
to possess to be successful in every challenge. This report takes through the journey of
developing personal and professional skills like communication skills, team skills, time
management skills and business skills that will help in overcoming challenges given, which
includes apprentice challenge, t-shirt challenge and presentation challenge.
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................4
Communication skill....................................................................................................................4
Team skills...................................................................................................................................6
Time management skill................................................................................................................6
Business skills..............................................................................................................................7
Action plan...................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
There are various skills and knowledge that a person possesses and develops over time.
These skills help in overcoming many challenges that a person faces in personal and professional
life (Seifert and Feliks, 2019). This report is focussed on various such skills that are required to
overcome challenges presented in the scenario which a student can face further in professional
life. This will help them develop an attitude for such skills and facing such challenges with a
mighty spirit.
Main Body
Communication skill
Figure 1 Basic components of communication
To be able to communicate refers to exchange of information in written, oral or any other
medium. Communication process refers to that process or sequence of steps which are to be
taken in order to complete a successful communication. It includes several sequential steps – a
sender, a message which is being transferred by the sender, the channel with which message is
transferred and a receiver (Ritchie, 2016). Since, communication is a two-way process, it is
considered complete only when feedback is received by sender from receiver. Communication
skills refers to those skills that helps in exchange of information between individuals and groups.
Communication involves written, oral, symbolic and pictorial form of information exchange and
skills that help in such exchange includes listening, speaking, observing, empathising, etc. These
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skills play a very important role in both personal and professional life of a person. Below
mentioned are the communication skills that are helpful in overcoming given challenges:
 Apprentice challenge – Communication skills helps in interaction with people (Wilkins,
Bernstein and Bekki, 2015). This interaction can be one-on-one individual basis or group
interaction. These interactions help team leaders or managers in assessing the capabilities
of their teammates. Apprentice challenge refers to the challenge for managers or team
leaders to identify difference in capabilities of their subordinates and develop necessary
training that will take their capabilities to maximum level. Communication skills like
conversation and observation will help them assess their skills set and decide and design
necessary training and motivation required by them.
 Presentation challenge – Presentation refers to publicly presenting required information.
It helps a person in communicating desired maximum information to the targeted people
in concise manner. Communication skill is critical to present an information effectively
as it will help in preparing and delivering a presentation in such a way that it will be
easier to communicate and understood by maximum people who were targeted. My
communication skills will help me in delivering a presentation for the exact message or
topic that I intend to present and my listening and observing skills will help me in
understanding and responding the queries that listeners would have from my presentation.
 T-shirt challenge – This is a challenge in which people are given a task of designing t-
shirt. A target market is identified and the designed t-shirt is required to be sold there. T-
shirt needs to have some creativity, quote or message on it. Main challenges in this are at
two areas - one is while designing and another is while selling and marketing it.
Designing is a challenge as the printed message will also serve as a marketing tool and
will help in maximising brand value while marketing is a challenge as it will help in
establishing the brand value. My communication skill will help me in observing others to
identify what message will be appropriate and what cloth will be appropriate to get
developed and will also help me in establishing a connection and interaction with
targeted customers so that sales can be maximised and loyal customer base can be
established (Clokie and Fourie, 2016).
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Team skills
No organisation can succeed and grow if the employees will work in isolation or will not
be able to work in a team (Jackling and Natoli, 2015). Therefore, team skills are those skills
which are required by employers while hiring an employee. This includes team working skills,
team management skills and team communication skills. They are not restricted to professional
aspect of a person and are also helpful in building relationships and networks in personal life.
Below mentioned are the aspects and impact of my team skills on given challenges:
 Apprentice challenge – I am habitual of working in isolation and when I’m required to
work within team, I’m not able to contribute much as I don’t participate much in group
discussions. Therefore, these skills can be said to be my weakness. Team requires joint
efforts of all team-mates to succeed however, my inhibitions to participate and join team
discussions can negatively affect team bonding and performance.
 Presentation challenge – Group presentation of team requires participation of all team
members so that work can be divided accordingly. But, with my inhibitions to be
involved in team discussions, it could lead to failure in development and presentation as a
team effort. This can also lead to disconcerts and conflicts among team members.
 T-shirt challenge – Development of a new product and marketing it, both requires efforts
of whole team. I can communicate with customers and colleagues on one-to-one basis but
my inability to join team discussions will make this challenge more difficult for me and
my team to complete.
Time management skill
It is very important for a business to respect timeliness of an opportunity before it is
missed (Suleman, 2018). It is also necessary for an individual to possess this skill as it helps in
organising and managing multiple activities at the same time without affecting quality of
performance in either. Balancing time among various activities is very beneficial for people to
face deadlines successfully as it helps in effectively prioritising tasks which requires urgent
attention and so on. Good time management skills help an employee to earn better image at the
workplace and also, enables to learn new skills. Below mentioned is time management aspect for
each challenge:
 Time management in LSST presentation – Time management helps a student in
attending all their classes in university in a timely order as well as learn new skills. I have
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a weakness of procrastinating things which leads to time mismanagement later. This
possesses a challenge for me to attend all the classes on time.
 Time management in Tesco presentation – To deliver an effective presentation, it is
important to timely prepare it and practise all its contents and related facts (Pinto and
Ramalheira, 2017). With my little time mismanagement, this challenge is difficult for me
as it might lead to some important information being missed from my presentation on
Tesco.
 Time management in T-shirt challenge – To properly launch a new product before
customers, it is important that all the necessary analysis on customer behaviour,
expectation and demand be timely carried out. However, it is a challenge for me that no
important survey and necessary analysis out of it is missed that can lead to losses or
disappointments later.
Business skills
These skills refer to those skills set which enables people to understand the psyche of
business operations and management including consumer behaviour so that they can be used to
do benefit of the business organisation (Desai, Berger and Higgs, 2016). These skills set include
skills like leadership skills, networking skills, management skills, influencing, negotiating and
problem-solving skills, etc. and other soft skills. Below mentioned is how these skills can be
helpful in each challenge:
 Business skills in LSST presentation – It is important to develop necessary business
skills before starting any project, task or business. All skills and business acumen that I
possess will be evaluated during learning phase in LSST presentation.
 Business skills in Tesco presentation – A business presentation internally within
company and presenting company and product information to consumer both require
professional and business skills and acumen. My business skills will help me in
presenting activities in Tesco presentation in line with purpose and action plan.
 Business skills in T-shirt challenge – This includes challenge of launching new product
within the sphere of target customers. Business skills like networking skills and
influencing skills are beneficial in successfully completing this challenge. With my good
necessary business skills, I’ll be able to develop good customers for this challenge.
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Action plan
Action plan refers to the plan of action which an individual develops to outline the targeted
objective and the path that will lead to its achievement (Matlay and et.al., 2015). Below
mentioned is the SMART action plan based on my skills set and aims to improve my time
management and team skills where I lag behind so that there is no gap in my skills set that can
hamper my professional career and will ensure that there is no obstruction in my personal and
professional development. SMART action plan involves defining SMART objectives:
 Specific – It says that goals need to be clear, well defined and unambiguous.
 Measurable – It says that goals should be such that their progress can be tracked.
 Achievable – It says that goals which are attainable, should only be aimed.
 Realistic – It says that no impossible and irrelevant goal must be set.
 Time bound – It says that there must be time deadline for aims against which their
performance will be assessed.
My personal SMART objectives include:
- For improving time management skills – I aim to develop and participate time bound
tasks for myself for next 12 weeks in which, in first 6 weeks, I’ll be observing my
weaknesses and reasons for procrastination. Based on this observation, I’ll complete my
tasks in further 6 weeks aimed at reducing reasons for time mismanagement by almost
40%.
- For improving team skills - I aim to assess, analyse and observe my personal activities
in team performance for 4 weeks and based on that analysis, improve my team
participation, communication and management skills within further 8 weeks by almost
50%.
Conclusion
The above report concludes that every individual possesses different kinds of skills set and
requires timely assessment of those skills set so that necessary skills can be developed as per
requirement. For students who are future professionals, it is very important to make a mental
note of their skills set so that they can acquire other skills required for self-development and to
overcome various challenges that they will face in further life.
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References
Books and Journal
Clokie, T.L. and Fourie, E., 2016. Graduate employability and communication competence: Are
undergraduates taught relevant skills?. Business and Professional Communication
Quarterly. 79(4). pp.442-463.
Desai, M.S., Berger, B.D. and Higgs, R., 2016. Critical thinking skills for business school
graduates as demanded by employers: a strategic perspective and
recommendations. Academy of Educational Leadership Journal. 20(1). pp.10-31.
Jackling, B. and Natoli, R., 2015. Employability skills of international accounting
graduates. Education+ Training.
Matlay, H. and et.al., 2015. Estimating the effect of entrepreneur education on graduates’
intention to be entrepreneurs. Education+ Training.
Pinto, L.H. and Ramalheira, D.C., 2017. Perceived employability of business graduates: The
effect of academic performance and extracurricular activities. Journal of Vocational
Behavior. 99. pp.165-178.
Ritchie, S.M., 2016. Self-assessment of video-recorded presentations: Does it improve
skills?. Active Learning in Higher Education. 17(3). pp.207-221.
Seifert, T. and Feliks, O., 2019. Online self-assessment and peer-assessment as a tool to enhance
student-teachers’ assessment skills. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher
Education. 44(2). pp.169-185.
Suleman, F., 2018. The employability skills of higher education graduates: insights into
conceptual frameworks and methodological options. Higher Education. 76(2). pp.263-
278.
Wilkins, K.G., Bernstein, B.L. and Bekki, J.M., 2015. Measuring communication skills: The
STEM interpersonal communication skills assessment battery. Journal of Engineering
Education. 104(4). pp.433-453.
Online
Basic components of communication. 2020. [Online]. Available through:<
http://katekei.com/basic-components-of-communication
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