Reflective Essay: Evaluating Skills for Workforce Integration

This self-reflective journal examines a student's assessment of their readiness for the workforce, prompted by a job advertisement. The student identifies and analyzes personal attributes, including self-confidence, positive attitude, and being a good role model, citing research to support their analysis and strategies for maintaining these strengths. The essay also addresses areas needing improvement, such as emotional intelligence, providing a compelling vision, and managing performance effectively. The student proposes methods for development in these areas, incorporating references to relevant scholarly articles and practical techniques for self-improvement, ultimately aiming to enhance their suitability for future employment opportunities. The assignment adheres to the provided brief, utilizing self-tests and scholarly references to evaluate and reflect on personal and professional capabilities, preparing the student for workforce integration.

Self-Reflective Journal
While browsing the internet a few days ago, I came across a job advertisement, and I got
interested in the job being offered. The advert included a job description, contact details, the
duties of the employee and the requirements that were expected from the job applicant. The
requirements that were mentioned included personal etiquette and personal attributes, to find out
whether I qualified for the job, I decided to conduct a personal reflection, draw a conclusion,
write a reflective journal and present to the board with the hope of getting a job. In the course of
my individual evaluation, I keenly followed my behavior and my relation to other people over
the course of the previous one year. This included how I conducted myself in my earlier place of
work, how I worked with the other employees and how I responded to authority.
There are attributes that I am reasonably good at and need to maintain to continue being a
productive employee if given a chance, among the characteristics that I possess include; self-
confidence, positive attitude and outlook and I am also a good role model.
Self-confidence – this is one of the attributes that I currently possess. Over the course of the last
year, I have been able to manage my work effectively, putting up a suitable communication
channel with the customers and also interacted well with other employees (Vazeou-Nieuwenhuis
& Schumann, 2018). Self-confidence enables me to hold on to the position of “Employee of The
Month” for the last four consecutive months. In order to maintain a healthy level of this attribute,
I have a few suggestions which I can use to keep it in check, this method include; noting down
my strengths – in this method, I will write down all my strengths and the reasons as to why I
would like to maintain a good state of self-confidence. This note would be a great reminder in
times when I feel weak or need a reason to continue working even harder. The second method to
maintain my self-confidence is by being selfless; this technique would involve putting the needs

of others before my personal needs. This method would help me greatly by boosting my self-
esteem and at the same time make a great contribution to the people around me who need my
help. The third way to maintain my self-confidence involves increasing my effectiveness in the
outside world. Increasing my effectiveness in the outside world would help improve my value to
the people around me hence raise the value of my output to the outside world.
The second attribute that I possess is a positive attitude and outlook. Over the course of
the last couple of years, I applied a positive view in most of the things that I did; this also
involved viewing the positive side of the people around me no matter their bad attributes (Liu,
Zhang, Chen, & Yu, 2018). This technique has greatly helped me in creating a good connection
with people and establishing an open and free relation with other employees. To maintain a
positive attitude, certain features need to be maintained. The first method that would help me
maintain this attribute would be determining my reality, the best way to realize my reality would
be by analyzing the way that I react to the outside world. By determining the outcome, I would
determine whether it affects me positively or negatively and react to the result appropriately. The
second method that would help me maintain my positive attitude would be strongly starting my
days. Unlike most of the population who drag themselves out of bed, I would create a routine
that would help me reinforce a great the great beauty of life. The third method that would help
me maintain a positive attitude would be by using a lot of books, audio, and video to increase the
amount of positive thought in my brain (Bekhet & Garnier-Villarreal, 2017). By learning about
the people who have succeeded in life, you get to understand how those people think, how they
act and how they directed their life to achieve the life that they are living.
The third attribute that I possess is that I am a good role model. Over the course of the
last one year, I have worked alongside other people, and I have introduced a lot of people to the

work that we were assigned to in my previous work. Over the duration of the self-evaluation, I
have passed some attributes that enabled me to be a role model to many of my colleagues
shortly; there are methods that I wish to apply to maintain the state of being o good role model
(Buil, Martínez, & Matute, 2018). The methods that I wish to apply include; demonstrating
confidence and leadership – being a good role model to someone will involve showing a lot of
positive behavior, calm nature and confidence, this is because people don’t take a person who is
down or tries to take to take them down to be their role model. The second method I wish to
apply is by eliminating all forms of fear of being unique, no matter the activity that I decide to
undertake in my life, I should be proud of the person that I have turned out to be even though
that comes with some negative attitude from other people. The third method that I wish to apply
is by having humility and the willingness to admit mistakes. Since no one is perfect, I am also
prone to making mistakes. The people who take me to be a role model should be confident and
feel free to point a mistake when they see one, and I should also take accountability for a mistake
that I would have made and apologize for it (Kozlowski, Hutchinson, Hurley, & Browne, 2018).
Despite the attributes mentioned above, there are areas that I need to significantly work
on so that next time I find myself in similar situations, I will be able to react more effectively that
I have done before. The attributes to which my knowledge of them should be improved include;
emotional intelligence, providing and compelling vision of the future and managing performance
effectively.
Emotional Intelligence – Over the course of the personal evaluation duration, I have
been having trouble connecting to the emotional state of the partners that I work with; this has
made me look for ways that I can use to approach to such a situation. The first method that I can
apply to improve on my emotional intelligence is by learning how to perceive emotions; this is

the ability to detect and interpret the emotions on the faces of others and also my own emotions.
The second thing that I could learn is how to use the self-emotions and those of others to make
important decisions. A good leader should be able to work effectively and capitalize despite the
fluctuation of emotions. The third thing that I would like to learn is how to manage my own
emotions as well as those of my partners to work effectively (Cleary, Visentin, West, Lopez, &
Kornhaber, 2018).
Providing and compelling vision of the future – providing a clear image and an
illustration of the future has also been a weakness that I was dealing with for the last one year of
my life. The major weakness that I face is the lack of the ability to pass on my imagination to
other people about the future that we should be looking forward to. To solve such a problem,
some methods could be applied to improve on it; they include; vetting the vision – this method
involves revisiting the vision that is set out for the organization and deciding whether it is the
best for the organization. The second method that can be applied involves creating options – this
method involves developing more than one way which the organization can use to get to the set
goals (Selmi, Rebai, Chtara, Naceur, & Sahli, 2018).
The third and last attribute that I need to improve myself on is the ability to manage
performance effectively. Over the course of the period of personal evaluation, my ability on how
I managed the performance of those below me proved to be a little below average. To improve
my ability on how to manage performance, there are methods that I can apply; the first method
involves planning – this involves creating a plan that outlines expectations of groups and
individuals to channel their strength to achieving organizational goals (Vartiak, 2015). The
second method that can be applied involves monitoring – this method involves closely
monitoring the activities of a project as the works of the organization undertake it. Control of

projects also consists of giving feedback to the employees about their progress and how close
they are to reaching the objective.

References
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