Personal Development Report: Career Goals, Skills, and SWOT Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of personal development within a professional context. It begins by outlining the author's career goals, including HR Manager, Entrepreneur, and Business Development Manager, and then assesses their current reality through a SWOT analysis based on personal reflection and feedback from peers. The report identifies strengths such as teamwork and perseverance, alongside weaknesses in time management and self-motivation. It then details options for progression, including a plan to improve skills such as time management, self-motivation, and self-confidence. The report concludes with a way forward, outlining SMART actions for future development, and includes references to academic sources on personal development.

Personal Development
in Professional Settings

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Part 1: Career Goal ..........................................................................................................................1
Part 2: Current Reality.....................................................................................................................2
Part 3: Options for Progression........................................................................................................3
Part 4: Way Forward........................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
APPENDIX......................................................................................................................................7
APPENDICE 1 SWOT Analysis on the basis of 'Ask 5 People' Exercise..................................7

INTRODUCTION
Personal development can be referred to as the process of carrying out improvement in
one's personality by virtue of execution of learning and skill improvement activities and
practices. It is important for a person to adapt their personality and skills to the field they wish to
adopt in future. The following report seeks to gain an insight into the personal development of an
individual. The report includes sections named career goal, current reality, options for
progression and way forward.
Part 1: Career Goal
The fields that I would like to consider as my career choices in accordance with my skills
and traits are HR Manager, Entrepreneur and Business Development Manager.
The first choice of career considered by me is HR Manager. This is one of the most
reputed jobs in any organisation. The main job role of HR Manager in the bounds of an entity is
recruitment, selection, training, development, inclusion, diversity, and so forth. This will be an
ideal job for me as I have expertise in team working and providing training to individuals with
the help of which I will be able to empower the employees and make them work in a productive
manner. The average salary for the job role of HR manager within United Kingdom is 31400
pounds/annum.
Another career choice taken into due consideration by me is known to be Entrepreneur.
This career choice will provide me with an opportunity to setup my own venture and thereby
assume all the risks and liabilities linked to it. The rewards and benefits will also be enjoyed by
me. It is difficult for the entrepreneurs to begin a business from zero level and consequently
attain success, however, my skill set and competences will aid me to accomplish all my goals
and objectives in a timely manner. The business idea may vary but what is fixed is that I am
determined to gain success as a result of undergoing the process of entrepreneurship.
The last career option that I am considering is becoming Business Development Manager
(BDM). This job role is present in almost every business, irrespective of the nature of business
activities. In this relation, it has been identified that the main role and responsibility of this job
profile includes promoting the business of the firm in front of the clients in order to persuade
them to get associated with the company. My problem solving abilities will provide due
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assistance to me in catering to the requirements of the clients by addressing their issues through
the provision of organisational offerings.
I have chosen the option of becoming Business Development Manager in future as my
skill set and interests match this job profile suitably.
Part 2: Current Reality
It is important for an individual for constantly gain an insight into their personality. This
helps them in identifying their strengths and weaknesses. Also, it enables a person to recognise
the shortcomings in one's personality. As a result of this, an individual is able to undertake future
course of action that can facilitate the improvement of one's skills as well as competences. In this
relation, using the personal SWOT completed in class along with the attainment of feedback
from 5 contacts by making use of “Ask 5 People” Exercise, it can be analysed that there are
several strengths and weaknesses of my personality. These strengths and weaknesses are
comprehensively discussed as follows:-
Strengths:
Team working- This can be defined as the ability of an individual to work in groups of 3
or more individuals to achieve a common goal. In this relation, team working allows me to work
in an effective manner while working in groups, in a bid to derive positive outcomes. In future
course of time, this skill will allow me to operate in coordinated and cooperative manner with the
sales team to outshine the sales objectives of the company.
Perseverance- This can be comprehensively referred to as the persistence to undergo any
task or activity in a manner such that the anger or other emotions do not overpower the
performance of an individual. This allows me not to lose my calm and maintain my patience
even in the worst of situations. Being a business development manager, I will have to be
persevere at the time of dealing with clients having diverse set of mood and emotions.
Weaknesses:
Time management- This can be comprehensively defined as the ability of an individual
to manage time and thereby prioritize tasks in accordance with their importance for the person.
In this relation, it has been identified that I often find difficulty in managing my time in
accordance with the tasks and their deadlines. It often gets tough for me to ensure that all the
tasks will be completed by me in the desired course of time without any kind of discretion.
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Self motivation- This can be referred to as the ability of a person to get driven by oneself
or any of one's own motives. In this relation, I have recognised that I lack self motivation as I
often get disheartened with the small losses. Relating this to future course of time, it can be said
that this will act as a negative factor for me in upcoming time as a person may have to face
several shortcomings in their professional journey.
Part 3: Options for Progression
It is significant and critical for each and every individual to constantly keep analysing
their personality in a manner such that they can easily identifying any kind of shortage. Such
kind of shortage is commonly referred to as “gap”. This gap can be found to be evident in skills,
knowledge and experience. Such kind of gap when evident within an individual tends to give rise
to the emergence, for a person to undertake necessary and effective course of action. Such course
of action is aimed at incorporation of improvement in the personality of a person in accordance
with the career choice that a person has made for the long term. This allows an individual to
make sure that their personality gets adapted as well as aligned to the requirements and
prerequisites of the chosen career profile. Post the identification of gap in skill set, knowledge
base and competences, the sole motive of a person is to carry out activities which can help in
strengthening the overall professional personality.
As per the analysis, I have identified that my weak skill areas are time management, self
motivation, self confidence and English language skills. The plan to develop these skills is given
as follows:-
Skills Current
proficiency
Target
proficiency
Course of action Timeline
Self
motivation
2.5 5 To facilitate self motivation in the
long term, I will undergo personality
development course which will equip
me with the effective types of ways,
by way of which I can easily elevate
my level of self motivation. This will
allow me to stay encouraged even at
the time of small losses and not lose
45 days
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my calm in the moments of adversity.
Self
confidence
2 5 To enhance my level of self
confidence, I will seek guidance from
my peers as well as supervisors. This
will enable me to inflate my current
levels of self confidence and elevate it
to a level on which I can easily carry
out any task without any kind of
difficulty.
1 month
Time
management
2 5 For the enhancement of my time
management skills, I will take
supervision and training from my
seniors. In addition to this, I will also
undergo classes for improving my
hand at time management skills. As a
result of enhancing the level of
proficiency within this skill, I will be
able to prioritize my tasks and thereby
achieve success.
2 months
Part 4: Way Forward
The 3 SMART actions for future are devised by me as follows:-
“To enhance self motivation in 45 days by carrying out personality development classes
for a tenure of 1 month”
“To develop self confidence in 1 month by seeking guidance from superiors for a week”
“To enhance time management skill in a period of 2 months by taking guidance and
training from seniors for 1 week”
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CONCLUSION
It is inferred that career is a key facet that needs to be taken into due consideration by an
individual for the attainment of growth as well as success in future course of time. In this regard,
it is held that each and every individual is required to select their career choice in order to make
sure that their skill set, knowledge base, competencies and personality are aligned with the
desired career path.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Banwell, J. and Kerr, G., 2016. Coaches' Perspectives on Their Roles in Facilitating the Personal
Development of Student-Athletes. Canadian Journal of Higher Education. 46(1). pp.1-
18.
Carbonie, A., Guo, Z. and Cahalane, M., 2018. Positive Personal Development through eSports.
In PACIS (p. 125).
Chen, G. and Huang, S. S., 2017. Toward a theory of backpacker personal development: Cross-
cultural validation of the BPD scale. Tourism Management. 59. pp.630-639.
Frunză, S., 2017. Ethical leadership, religion and personal development in the context of global
crisis. Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies. 16(46). pp.3-16.
Howard, M. C., 2019. Virtual reality interventions for personal development: a meta-analysis of
hardware and software. Human–Computer Interaction. 34(3). pp.205-239.
Tattum, D. and Tattum, E., 2017. Social education and personal development. Routledge.
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APPENDIX
APPENDICE 1 SWOT Analysis on the basis of 'Ask 5 People' Exercise
Internal
Strengths:
Patience, team working
Perseverance
Training people
Focus multitasking
Hard-working
Working Independently
Problem Solving
Be able to work under pressure
Weaknesses:
Procrastinated, lack of experience
Poor time management
Lack of motivation
Stressed
Lack of confidence
English language skills
Business skills disorganised
External
Opportunities:
Digital library – research
Kortext
Vle / Internet
Other Books
Access to PDT, Module Lead, class tutor,
support group members, friends
Threats:
Illness
Friends and Families
Work
Lack of facilities
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