Essay: Evaluating Skills and Career Ambitions for Professional Growth

This reflective essay explores the process of personal and professional development, emphasizing the importance of continuous learning for meeting challenges and achieving goals. The essay begins with an introduction to personal and professional development, followed by an evaluation of the author's skill set and career ambitions. The author utilizes models like SWOT analysis and Kolb's learning cycle to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, as well as preferred learning styles. The essay also identifies the author's career aspirations in finance and marketing, highlighting the skills and knowledge gained through academic studies. The conclusion summarizes the findings and emphasizes the importance of acquiring new skills to remain competitive. The essay concludes with recommendations for further development, including enrolling in courses to enhance technical and analytical skills and exploring diverse industry opportunities. The author aims to be a successful marketer satisfying customers by identifying their needs.

Personal and
Professional
Development
(Reflective Essay)

Table of Contents
INRTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................3
IDENTIFICATION AND EVALUATION OF THE SKILL SET AND THE CAREER
AMBITION .....................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
.........................................................................................................................................................6

INRTRODUCTION
Personal and professional development is the process with the help of which the
individuals in the organisation engage themselves in the learning process that helps them to
meet various challenges and the goals (Colomer and et. al., 2013). The focus of professional
development is on the development needs of the individuals and of the groups. To meet up the
challenges, the individual need to have various professional as well as interpersonal skills such
as time management, stress management, effective communication etc. Such skills need to be
acquired by the person to them competent enough to acquire any job and to execute their role. In
this report, I will evaluate my skills and qualities with the helps of various model and theories
which will help me in deciding the area. I will also identify various sectors and the field in which
I can work on the basis of my current knowledge and skills. Also it will help me to analyse the
suitability of my skills with my career ambition and gap between required skills and skills I
posses. This will help me to develop new skills that will make me competent to work in the
sector I want to work.
IDENTIFICATION AND EVALUATION OF THE SKILL SET AND THE
CAREER AMBITION
To survive in the competitive environment it is important for the individual to develop
skills which will help them to perform their job and make them capable to meet the challenges.
Some skills are natural in the individual but other has to be acquired which facilitate a person in
decision-making and will develop an understanding of the area of in which one wants to work in.
Before identifying any sector and the types of the job which I want to do I have to analyse my
skills and qualities. This can be done with the help of SWOT analysis that will help me to
identify may strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities (Floyd, 2012).
Strengths are the factors which helps an individual in achieving their goals as they make
them better than the others and of which the individual has the advantages. Various strengths that
I have analyse I posses are, I have ability to handle the individuals because I try to talk to
everybody so that I can understand their nature which is why I can easily make friends. I believe
in considering everything aspect before taking any decision which makes my decision making
skills strong and authentic. Other people find comfortable sharing their issues as they believe that
I can suggest them better and can solve their issues (Kroll and Dussias, 2017).

Weaknesses helps to determine the area in which I am not good enough and need to
improve to make me competent in every aspect. Various weaknesses I found in me is that I easily
believe and trust others which is not good overtime as it make affect the authenticity of the
decision that are taken. The people around me believes that I do not respond to people frequently
and I am emotional which is not good in professional life.
Opportunities are the ways with the help of which an individual can take achieve their
objectives. As I have academic knowledge in the field of finance and marketing I can work in
any industry as it is common in all. Also I have all the skills which are required for a individual
to execute their role such as effective communication, patience, politeness etc.
Threats are those factors which can adversely affect the performance of the individual.
Various threats that I have faces are related to technical skills as I have a non-technical academic
background. The another threat is of a large number of people are available for work with
various skills (Zepeda, 2013).
Kolb's learning cycle is the model which show that every individual has their own learning
style. It has 4 dimensions these are, concrete learning which suggests that individual learns
from their experience, reflective observation of the new experience suggest that people
observe things before making any judgement, abstract conceptualization is associated with
logical and appropriate thinking before reacting or taking any action, and the last dimension is
active experimentation which suggests that people are good at influencing other to get their
work done (Van Driel and Berry, 2012). I moreover follows abstract conceptualization learning
as I believe in logical thinking before taking any decision.
Along with identification of the skills it is important for an individual to identify the
career ambition. This can be done by analysing the sector and the type of jobs that I want to and I
can undertake. Various type of jobs which I want to work in are related to finance and marketing
as my area of specialisation is this in my masters. During my studies I went through various
cases and subjects that developed the detailed knowledge in these two fields (Prosek and Hurt,
2014). I posses understanding of these two field such as various models, processes, legal
compliances that businesses need to apply in the organisations. While the sector in which I want
to work is either in Banking industry or Fast moving customer goods industry as in both of these
two industries my academic knowledge is useful and are as per my interest area. As I have
understanding of various financial models and concepts it will help in easy analysis of market

condition on the basis of which I can identify the best possible solution. In case of FMCG
industry also I can work easily as their also financial and marketing concept are applicable. My
communication skills, understanding with the individuals will help to identify the changes in the
taste and preference which is must in the FMCG industry (Pallisera and et. al., 2013).
My career ambition is to be a successful marketer who can satisfy their customers well by
identifying all their needs and wants. With the help of convincing skills, effective
communication, patience, politeness and ability to understand people I can achieve this ambition.
But I am lacking in analytical skills with the helps of which one can interpret things and
responses (Moon, 2013). So in order to achieve my ambitions I have to learn various analytical,
technical skills which can make me competent in every aspect.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report that the area in which I have taken specialisation is
a strong one which has a scope as it is present in every industry and in every organisation. The
skills I posses will help me to achieve my career ambition but I need to acquire few more skills
that too because I have non-technical academic background. My decision making skills will help
me in taking effective decisions as I consider all the aspects before taking any decision which
make me a abstract conceptualised learner who believe in logical thinking. On the basis of my
SWOT I identified that I have some strong factors which are advantageous for me to make career
in marketing as people are comfortable with me they can easily share their opinion and issues
which helps a marketer to identify the opportunities. This also develops the skills of leadership I
can convince and influence the people easily. The major threat that I have identified in my
SWOT is that majority of students are looking for similar jobs and they even posses some
technical knowledge.
RECOMMENDATIONS
On the basis of evaluation and the analysis of my skills I have identified that I have
competency to undertake my career ambition effectively but due to changes in the technology
and increasing competition I haver to keep on looking for the changes required in my skills. The
various steps that I can undertake to enhance my skills and abilities are I need to enrol in some
course which can develop various technical and analytical skills in me. This will help in decision
making and interpreting responses. Also I need to identify more industries where I can work as a

marketer as in banking there are various norms and training which are to be complied with
before taking any job and in FMCG job opportunities are not that much. I need to be a concrete
learner in which I have to learn with the help of my experiences. This will enable me to not to
repeat the mistake which I made in past and this can be done by preparing a list in which all the
mistakes and the lessons will be noted down so that they can be considered.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Colomer, J. and et. al., 2013. Reflective learning in higher education: A comparative analysis.
Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences. 93. pp.364-370.
Floyd, A., 2012. ‘Turning Points’ The Personal and Professional Circumstances That Lead
Academics to Become Middle Managers. Educational Management Administration &
Leadership. 40(2., pp.272-284.
Kroll, J. F. and Dussias, P. E., 2017. The benefits of multilingualism to the personal and
professional development of residents of the US. Foreign language annals. 50(2).
pp.248-259.
Moon, J. A., 2013. Reflection in learning and professional development: Theory and practice.
Routledge.
Pallisera, M. and et. al., 2013. Personal and professional development (or use of self) in social
educator training. An experience based on reflective learning. Social Work Education.
32(5). pp.576-589.
Prosek, E. A. and Hurt, K. M., 2014. Measuring professional identity development among
counselor trainees. Counselor Education and Supervision. 53(4). pp.284-293.
Van Driel, J. H. and Berry, A., 2012. Teacher professional development focusing on pedagogical
content knowledge. Educational researcher. 41(1). pp.26-28.
Zepeda, S. J., 2013. Professional development: What works. Routledge.