HR Assistant Portfolio: Cover Letter, Application & Reflection(UK)

This portfolio presents a comprehensive job application for an HR Assistant position, including a targeted cover letter emphasizing the candidate's enthusiasm for the role and relevant experience in human resources, particularly in employee relations and retention. The application further includes detailed answers to competency-based questions, showcasing teamwork, problem-solving, and persuasion skills with specific examples from academic and professional experiences. A reflective account using Gibb's and Kolb's models explores the candidate's business readiness, focusing on the development of training and change management competencies through practical application and analysis. This portfolio demonstrates a strong understanding of HR principles and a commitment to continuous professional development.

COVER LETTER – COPY AND PASTE YOUR COVER LETTER HERE (MAX. 500 WORDS)

Sofia Flores
[phone]
[e-mail]
July 17, 2021
Dear Hiring Manager,
I am excited to apply for the role of human resource manager in your organisation. I
am a certified human resource professional and I am prone to work for society and provide
them my skills so this will be of higher opportunity for me that I will be working with your
organisation which is engaged in serving society for a good cause. I am looking forward to
provide improvement in the organisation so that to enhance employee relation and employee
retention which is regarded as the biggest element within an organisation. I look forward to
provide my support to initiate various activities and initiatives within an organisation so that
employee may contribute to the organisation within their tenure of hiring to retirement.
As being director of human resource within Arcadia group and I was a key leader in
that organisation and I was responsibly managing overall performance of organisation which
is having near about 400 employees. Before that I worked within human resource, and equal
employment opportunities within Jenkins solution in which I have developed employee
retention plan which was associated with creating a wellness program for employees. This
was the part of my internal training in which I learnt regarding selection process so that
which helped me to minimise their employee turnover to the range of 50%.
I am having 5 years of experience in human resource management and this helped me
to gain experience and skills and I used my these skills into developing employee retention
and recruitment aspect as well. I have a bachelor degree in human resource and labour
relations from Imperial college and I have done my masters in organisational development
and strategic human resource management from University of Birmingham. I am an
enthusiastic learner which helps me to stay motivated and curious to learn about such aspects
due to which I am having higher interest in Human resource activities. Being a human
resource manager I am having appropriate research skills which has supported me to develop
analytical skills as well and in this manner I am capable enough to manage market trends and
including those elements which are leading into providing appropriate action plans. Besides
this with the help of my interpersonal skills I am able to make effective decisions as well. As
I am having appropriate knowledge and information as I was involved in training session
within London. My effective communication skills helped me to perform my duties in most

effective manner. I got many appreciation for my working and performance which helped me
to bring such skills within my workings. I have attached my Curriculum vitae below in order
to complete the process of job application and now I am waiting to receive positive response
from you.
Thank you for your time and consideration which is given to me. I am going to
welcome all those opportunities in order to discuss my experiences and qualification on the
position of Human resource manager.
Sincerely,
Sofia Flores
APPLICATION FORM (maximum 200 words per answer)
1. Why do you want to work for us?
I want to work for your organization because I have researched about the company
and job role, it was of my expectations where I wanted to be in the job profile and a type of
organization in order to polish and furnish my skills and work under many experienced
people to gain better knowledge and personal experience from it. Moreover, I found out the
the organization culture is extremely collaborative and friendly which I can easily find my
way out because the open plan and agile working is encouraged along with the opportunity of
working from home one day per week so that I can maintain my comfort level as well.
Furthermore, the organization is non profit and it is one of my dream to work in a charitable
company in order to serve the needy people. I was even impressed with the job roles and
responsibilities because I wanted to become the professional HR and such responsibilities can
help me in being so. I have gone through the benefits and salary as well, it is of my

expectations and I met most of the requirements that a company wants in an employees. So
because of all such reasons I want to work for the organization (Bartleet, Ballico, Bennett and
Harrison, 2019).
2. Tell us about a time you worked in a group to achieve an objective (what did you do
and what was the outcome?)
I have worked in a group to achieve an objective in my college days where it was a
competition organized by the teachers of completion of a task related to the formulation of
management strategies. Teachers themselves have formulated the group accordingly and I
was team member, we were supposed to brainstorm ourselves so that we can formulate an
effective and efficient manage strategies for employee management. We had developed the
tactics associated with each and every role of human resource department such as starting
with the recruitment and selection, on boarding of new joiners, training and development,
performance management and termination strategies. We were successful in creating the
measures for the same after having the conflicts and decision making problems, we did it by
proper management in conflicts and other process involved in the competition. Judge was the
college's human resource manager who is responsible for recruitment and staff management
of the college. We have presented all such strategies in the form of PowerPoint presentation
and quality content to attract the attention of the audiences and judge for better concentration
and judgement. We stood on second position and get rewarded for the same and finally we
have completed the mutual task assigned to us in a group (Furniss, Curzon and Blandford,
2018).
3. Tell us about a time when you identified a new approach to solve a problem. (what did
you do and what was the outcome?)
I have identified a new approach to solve a problem when there is a competition in my
college of extempore in which random topics are given to the students and we have to speak
on it till 1 or 2 minutes of time duration. I went onto the stage and picked up the random chit
of topic. My topic was sports. It was compulsory to mention the relevant data to justify the
speech. The problem was that I was not having the knowledge of sports and specially any
data about the sport players. I was totally blanked at that time but then I thought to be honest
while speaking and then I spoke about basics of sports but started with the statements that due
to less interest in sports, I don't have any deep knowledge about it but I will continue with
whatever I know about it. This has created the great impression on judges because being
honest is a priority as it maintains the academic integrity and most of the students speak

wrong without being honest just to complete the time duration of speech and I didn't did this
thing so I got appreciation from the judges and also rewarded for the same (Gemünden,
Lehner and Kock, 2018).
4. Tell us about a time when you had to manage a number of different priorities and
complete a number of tasks in a short amount of time (what did you do and what was
the outcome?)
I was pursuing last semester, simultaneously it was compulsory for us to do internship
on the profile we are interested in order to gain live experiences of management and human
resource functions. It was not easy to go for an internship for about almost six hours and
work for the company under pressure and also to attend the college classes along with the
completion of nay assignment on the daily basis and also the internal exams as well. All such
activities needs sufficient time to go for an internship and study as well. So after facing all
such problems, I decide to manage my daily routine and timings to perform each and every
task related to the internship and college as well. I made my entire time table of my whole
day in which I have reduced some of the rest time such as using of mobile phones and
watching television and some of the sleep time as well. I used to wake up early in the
morning and start performing all my tasks by strictly performing my schedule and finally
attained all these in doing so and successfully ended my semester with good marks and ended
internship as well with good experience and learning (Keegan, Ringhofer and Huemann,
2018).
5. Tell us about a project you worked on that required you to persuade others to your
point of view (what did you do and what was the outcome?)
In my college days, there was a group activity in which each group has to establish
their own hypothetical brand company offering products and services to the customers of our
own choice. It was again a random group made by the teachers and present this activity on
deadline day which is to be judged as it is a type of competition of branding activity. My
opinion was to open an online business of delivery services and other people were having
their own ideas of starting up a restaurant or a clothing company and many more. Our ides
were clashing very badly because each one wants to take the idea of their personal choice. So
I was to persuade them all to go for my idea. So I strayed convincing them about telling them
the benefits of online business in this pandemic situation, judges will like the idea because it
is based on the current scenario and moreover, based on the technology which is important in
the business. They all were started agreeing with my idea so I even have given the further

ideas of presentation the plan in front of the judges. Team members were finally got
convinced and started preparing for the same. This is how persuaded others to my point of
view (Akkermans, Keegan, Huemann and Ringhofer, 2020).

REFLECTION ON YOUR BUSINESS READINESS
GIBB’S MODEL:
Description
Business readiness is related to the change in an organization that is to be conducted
for the benefits or in order to solve some issues the business is facing currently. In my
perception, I have thought about the change of conducting a training and development
sessions in a different way.
Feelings
Currently, ways used are just a classroom sessions given to the employees for
learning, but I want to bring up the changes of on job training as well so that the employees
not only just study the theory part but also take experiences for the same for better
development (Englund and Bucero, 2019).
Evaluation
It is evaluated that the training sessions of on job training are giving more benefits
than the classrooms sessions because until and unless the employees will not having any
experience of learning then they will not be able to perform good even after the classroom
sessions as well.
Analysis
It is analysed that the results received after this change in the training and
development session is in a positive manner which has led to the good productivity in an
organization.
Conclusion
It is concluded that change management which was conducted for employee as well
as company management has been a successful plan with better results.
Action plan
Action plan includes the planning stage of discussing about the goals and objectives.
Organizing stage discusses the arrangements of implementation. Staffing stage discusses the
people who are involved in this change need to have proper knowledge about it. Directing
stage discusses the provision of guidance of how to implement. Controlling stage discusses
the implementation with evaluation of it (Skulmoski, Langston, Patching and Ghanbaripour,
2021).

KOLB’S MODEL
Concrete experience
It is the stage which helps to analyse the learnings from past experiences and not to
repeat the mistakes again which was done earlier so that this time the change management
can be perfect without any conflicts and proper management. So this is basically to examine
the past experiences for future considerations and decision making process.
Reflective observation
It is the stage which supports in strategic observation of the situation at present so that
the modifications which are to done for improvement can be performed so that enhancement
could take place at time only without any complications and future delays. It is done in the
form of reflection due to the personal and self-observation methodologies (Rastovski, 2021).
Abstract conceptualisation
It is a stage which assist the generating the concepts for the change management
which is to done in an organization so that people who are involved in such activities will
have the more information about how to implement and execute the same with beneficial
concepts of both the employees as well the organization also.
Active experimentation
It is the stage which aids in the implementation of the program with well evaluated
results and examination of it. So that current situation problems can be rectified effectively
and future execution can go easy (Janssens, 2021).

References
Akkermans, J., Keegan, A., Huemann, M. and Ringhofer, C., 2020. Crafting project
managers’ careers: Integrating the fields of careers and project management. Project
management journal. 51(2). pp.135-153.
Bartleet, B.L., Ballico, C., Bennett, D. and Harrison, S., 2019. Building sustainable portfolio
careers in music: insights and implications for higher education. Music Education
Research. 21(3). pp.282-294.
Englund, R. and Bucero, A., 2019. The complete project manager: Integrating people,
organizational, and technical skills. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Furniss, D., Curzon, P. and Blandford, A., 2018. Exploring organisational competences in
Human Factors and UX project work: managing careers, project tactics and
organisational strategy. Ergonomics. 61(6). pp.739-761.
Gemünden, H.G., Lehner, P. and Kock, A., 2018. The project-oriented organization and its
contribution to innovation. International Journal of Project Management. 36(1).
pp.147-160.
Janssens, J., 2021. Managing and Shaping Change in International Projects. In Research
Anthology on Digital Transformation, Organizational Change, and the Impact of
Remote Work (pp. 1199-1222). IGI Global.
Keegan, A., Ringhofer, C. and Huemann, M., 2018. Human resource management and
project based organizing: Fertile ground, missed opportunities and prospects for closer
connections. International Journal of Project Management. 36(1). pp.121-133.
Rastovski, T., 2021, February. Influence of Project Management Certification on Project
Managers’ Career. In 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Economic Research and
Management Innovation (ERMI 2021) (pp. 48-52). Atlantis Press.
Skulmoski, G.J., Langston, C., Patching, A. and Ghanbaripour, A., 2021. Sustainable Project-
Oriented Careers: A Conceptual Model. In Research on Project, Programme and
Portfolio Management (pp. 55-80). Springer, Cham.