Graduate Challenges: Skills Development and Action Plan Report

This report addresses the challenges faced by graduates entering the professional world, focusing on the development of essential skills and the creation of effective action plans. The introduction defines graduate challenges and their impact on career goals, emphasizing the importance of skill development. The main body analyzes challenges encountered in various scenarios, such as apprentice, presentation, t-shirt, and hotel challenges, and highlights the significance of communication, teamwork, time management, and business skills. The report includes a detailed action plan with SMART objectives to improve communication, teamwork, and marketing skills. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, underscoring the importance of self-assessment and skill enhancement for professional success. The report includes references to relevant academic sources.

Graduate Challenge

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................3
Communication skills.............................................................................................................3
Teamwork skills.....................................................................................................................4
Time management and meeting skills....................................................................................5
Business skills........................................................................................................................5
Action plan.............................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
A graduate challenge is define about the degree which is received by the student after
completing their graduation. And the challenges they faces after completing their graduation
or during the graduation (Burns, 2016). But in business life it is the function which show how
a person effectively manage the various challenges in the organisation. Being a graduate
person it is become important to develop the skills and knowledge to develop the future goal
in an organisation. In this report I consider the various challenges which are faces by me
while working in the organisation and upgrading my skills and evaluating my weakness. The
challenges which is covered in this report are apprentice challenge, presentation challenge, T-
shirt challenge and hotel challenge. And to overcome these challenges I make an action plan
for developing my own career plan and growth.
MAIN BODY
Communication skills
Communication skills are what which is very important for every individual and
specially for working employees. This skills make the confidence in a person and help the
person to communicate with the other people in the organisation with the more effective
manner. Communication process is tough and bilateral process where the information is
transfer from one person to another. I have a good communication skills which are helpful to
manage my professional work more effectively. There are some challenges which are face by
me while working in the organisation.
 Apprentice challenge: This challenge explain the situation when a leader or a manager
are not able to manage the other employee of the company and they are not giving
their best productivity. Which come the loss and decline rate in the company. This
challenge can be overcome by good communication skills (Altonji, Arcidiacono and
Maurel, 2016). By interacting more with the employees and motivate them to work is
can be done by apprentice challenge. I can overcome this challenge easily as I have a
good communication skills.
 Presentation challenge: In this challenge, a leader must be able to present the
presentation which is made by the team in the most effective and clearly manner. In
this presentation challenge the accurate and current data is needed, and to collect the
data a leader must have the ability to communicate with the others.

 T-shirt challenge: In this challenge, employee assign the task in which a t-shirt is
given to the employees and they have to print an effective and motivational massage
which increase the sale of the company. This challenge can be solve by taking the
suggestions from the other team members who had done this before.
 Hotel challenge: This challenge reflect how a person manage the whole team and
clients and solve their problems effectively. This challenge is completed by the person
who have a strong communication skills, who can influence the clients for the
company’s sake. This is somehow a difficult challenge for the employees but can be
overcome by good and effective communication.
Teamwork skills
This skill is very helpful for the employees as working in a team in an organised way
is very important for their own development and for the growth of the company also (Posselt,
2016). Working effectively with the peer members, top management, clients all are come
under the good team work skills. I am not as good in managing the team or work in a team. I
like to work alone not with sharing other. This skills is needed to improve by me at my
personal level and the challenges are face by me are explained below:
 Apprentice challenge: This is important challenge which are faced in every company
and I am not good in working in a team so this challenge would be difficult for me in
the context of managing or work in a team. To overcome this challenge I have to
build my skills and make a coordination with the other employees of the organisation.
 Presentation challenge: To make a presentation all team members efforts are needed,
as it is not possible to make a good presentation by single person as they don’t have
all the skills and knowledge of all the departments. So gathering the information it is
important to have a good teamwork skills.
 T-shirt challenge: Making a new and innovative t-shirt in the company will need the
support of old employees or some other co-worker (Wette, 2017). Although this team
work skill is not that matter to this challenge but somewhere it effect.
 Hotel challenge: this is the challenge which is given by the company to see the
efficiency of the employee and in this team work and proper research of the client is
needed. This challenge create the problem in my working style but to overcome this
challenge I have to improve my skills.

Time management and meeting skills
Meeting the skills in a given time is very important, the skills where needed is used by
the employee in the time management skills. This skill is required to complete the assigned
work in the given time and to complete the work effectively it is important to manage the
time according to the preference list (Cantwell, Lee and Mlambo, 2018). I am good in
managing the time and work according to my routine. This skill help me to overcome the
defined challenges:
 Apprentice challenge: when a person is not able to manage the time by their won then
how would the leader or manager manage the whole team and motivate them to work
in the pre-defined time. I can easily handle this challenge as I am efficient in
managing my time.
 Presentation challenge: Making a presentation the important thing after the data, is
time. To make an effective presentation it should be take care that the presentation is
not so long or so short. So time management skill is effective and work here to
overcome the challenge.
 T-shirt challenge: Completing the assign work in the given time is make the good
image of the employee in front of top management and that employee come in the
good list. T-shirt challenge can be overcome by if the employee is make a proper time
management in order to complete the work.
 Hotel challenge: To make the client happy and stratify it is important to work in a
proper time management. As if they get their queries solution in time then it would
very helpful for the company to make the good image.
Business skills
Business skill is the ability to get the knowledge of all the skills and abilities which
are helpful to make the good business skills and complete the task and projects on time
(Minocha, Hristov and Reynolds, 2017). With this skills a manager take the company on high
and increase their knowledge and profitability. This skills are known as the soft skills of the
person as it is the combination of the all the skills.
 Apprentice challenge: To manage the other employee with all the technical skills it is
important to know about the business skills and work effectively. So in order to
complete this challenge the needed thing is business skills.

 Presentation challenge: To overcome this challenge in the organisation, the important
skills is to communicate with others, a good time management, and a good leader can
overcome with this challenge easily.
 T-shirt challenge: Business skills help to overcome the T-shirt challenge as this
challenge need the knowledge and some innovative skills (Sidman-Taveau and
Karathanos-Aguilar, 2015). With my amazing creativity I can overcome with this
challenge.
 Hotel challenge: Hotel challenge is become difficult for most of the employee as here
the person need the effective skills of marketing and communication. I can face this
challenge with some difficulties as I have issues with my marketing skills.
Action plan
In order to achieve the desired skills and ability to get the successful professional
career the plan is made on the individual basis, this plan is known as the action plan
(Clydesdale 2015). Action plan need a proper sequence and implantation of the plan with step
by step. I make an action plan in order to make the improvement in my strength and
weakness. For this I design a SMART objective which is specified, measurable, achievable,
and realistic and time oriented.
My smart objectives are:
“To improve the communication and marketing skills, join an online class for
marketing techniques for the next six months, in order to develop my marketing skill at
25%.”
“To improve my team work skills, I join most of the team work assignment and try to
coordinate with others till next six months, and increased by skill by 40%.”
CONCLUSION
From the above reflective report it is concluded that there are the various challenges
which are faced by the graduate students who are come in the professional life. And it is
important to every person to complete their swot analysis and get to know about themselves
in regards to their strengths and weaknesses. In the above report we are evaluating four main
challenges which are apprentice challenge, Presentation challenge, t-shirt challenge and hotel
challenge. And to overcome this challenge there are the skills like communication skills,
team management skills, time management skills and business skills. To improve the

professional path it is important to overcome these challenges and make the path clear and
get the success.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Altonji, J. G., Arcidiacono, P. and Maurel, A., 2016. The analysis of field choice in college
and graduate school: Determinants and wage effects. In Handbook of the Economics
of Education (Vol. 5, pp. 305-396). Elsevier.
Burns, H. L., 2016. Learning sustainability leadership: An action research study of a graduate
leadership course. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and
Learning. 10(2). p.n2.
Cantwell, B., Lee, J. J. and Mlambo, Y. A., 2018. International graduate student labor as
mergers and acquisitions. Journal of International Students. 8(4). pp.1483-1498.
Clydesdale, T., 2015. The purposeful graduate: Why colleges must talk to students about
vocation. University of Chicago Press.
Minocha, S., Hristov, D. and Reynolds, M., 2017. From graduate employability to
employment: policy and practice in UK higher education. International Journal of
Training and Development. 21(3). pp.235-248.
Posselt, J. R., 2016. Inside graduate admissions: Merit, diversity, and faculty gatekeeping.
Harvard University Press.
Sidman-Taveau, R. and Karathanos-Aguilar, K., 2015. Academic Writing for Graduate-Level
English as a Second Language Students: Experiences in Education. CATESOL
Journal. 27(1). pp.27-52.
Wette, R., 2017. Using mind maps to reveal and develop genre knowledge in a graduate
writing course. Journal of Second Language Writing. 38. pp.58-71.