CPD1102 Professional Development: Essay on Skills and Competencies

This essay delves into the critical skills and competencies necessary for effective career development, particularly focusing on the path to becoming an HR manager. It differentiates between skills, defined as learned capacities, and competencies, which encompass associated abilities, knowledge, and behaviors. The essay reviews literature highlighting the importance of communication, teamwork, problem-solving, planning, and technology skills in today's business environment. It emphasizes the need for adaptability, self-management, and work-integrated learning. Furthermore, it underscores the significance of ethical conduct and the ability to align personal career goals with organizational needs. The discussion covers the role of HR managers in identifying and fostering these skills in employees to drive organizational growth and individual career success. Desklib offers a wealth of resources including similar essays and solved assignments for students.

Running head: CAREER DEVELOPMENT
CAREER DEVELOPMENT
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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The aim of this essay is to discuss the effective skill and competencies needed for
career development. In this paper, the personal desire to become an HR manager by
incorporating effective behavioural and ethical competencies have been explored. Skill is the
learned capacity which helps the persons to carry out the predetermined results. The term
skills and competences have been used virtually and interchangeably now a days. To most of
the business practitioners, the competencies seem like the behavioural competencies whereas
the skills are learned capacity. These make the skills and competencies different from each
other. This essay will review literatures of the scholars and point out what skills and
competencies are most valued in the business context of the recent times.
In order to become an ethical practitioner, the difference of skills and competencies is
needed to be understood. Skills are proficiency, facilities and dexterity which are required for
working professionally and developed through experience and training. Skill is the ability
which comes from the knowledge, attitude and the practice so that the persons can do well in
their professional lives. The abilities and capacity which are developed through systematic,
deliberate as well as sustained effort for carrying out the complex activities and job functions
adaptively, are associated with ideas of cognitive skills, technical knowledge and the
interpersonal skills. In addition to this, skills are learning abilities for bringing about the
consequences of the result the persons want with their maximum certainty as well as
efficiency (Clark and Wayment 2017). Skills also include proficiency that can be developed
through learning from the others or training that support the knowledge.
Competency on the other hand is a collection of associated abilities, knowledge,
obligations and the skills which make an individual or an organisation to act perfectly in the
job and situations. Competencies are the skills and knowledge which lead the managers or
organisations to perform better. These are the quantifiable skills, capabilities and personality
traits which classify the successful workers against their defined parts within the

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organisation. The competency is more than skills and knowledge as it includes the
capabilities to meet the complex situations or demands through depiction as well as
mobilisation of the psychological sources that includes skills attitudes and particular context.
Competency is a measurable pattern of skills, abilities, knowledge and behaviour which
support the characteristics of the individual who want to perform the work and occupational
functions efficiently. The competencies of a person particularly specify how the job will be
performed and what the individual needs to do for doing that job successfully. Therefore
competencies can incorporate skill but it is more than skill as it includes abilities as well as
behaviour of the persons along with the knowledge fundamental for the skills.
In this global context the employees of the business organisations are looking for
some very important skills and competencies among the employees. Starting from the ground
level employees to the management level, there are separate types of skills and competencies
which are being supported. The general job skills are associated with employability skills or
soft skills. Along with the job skills the employees are expected to be dependable, easy to
mix up and flexible for learning new things. The core competencies for skills which the
management employees are needed to have include communication skills, teamwork,
problem solving, planning and organising initiative and Enterprise over learning and
use of Technology and self-management skills.
According to the study by Froehlich et al. (2018), the organisations in present
business contexts are judging the employees with their different constituents of employability
along with how the employees can progress with their employability trails. There are some
models of progression of employability which are less likely to be related to interpersonal
skills rather than elements of occupational expertise. In this global context, the organisations
are expecting the employees to be understanding with the competencies which are important
at the stages of the individuals’ career and career growth. Therefore, the career counsellors

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and human resource management specialists are giving more targeted advices for career
management practices. In this context when the HR manager is recruiting another
manager for the organisation, he or she will definitely find the best skilled and
competent employee so that the training and other support tend to be minimal.
For the managers, skills of planning and organising is essential. This means the
process of working out what the organisation needs to do and how it will do it. The planning
and organisational skills in worst things like meeting deadlines and developing project
timelines. In case of the managers, the employees, suppliers, customers and other
stakeholders are to be aligned for the growth of the business. Therefore it is the managers
who plan and organise every project so that nothing can have an adverse effect for the growth
of this business. This also includes the initiative and Enterprise skills that help the managers
in this business context to do things without being asked and involve thinking creatively for
making improvements to support the growth of the business.
Oussii and Klibi (2017) have detailed their study among three Tunisian business
schools which has revealed that the students of business education are being conscious about
the skills they will need in their profession and career. Among all, they are finding the
communication skills to be the most important for being successful in their career.
Depending upon the jobs, communication has meant to be clear about what one means and
what he wants to achieve when he or she talks and writes. Communication skill involves both
listening and being able to realise what someone is talking about. Listening is the first and
foremost element that helps the persons to develop communication skills. Being a good
listener is the best way to be a good communicator.
The process of active listening involves paying close attention to what the speaker is
saying which ensures understanding of the context based on which he or she will be

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communicating further. The nonverbal communication for the body gesture, eye contact,
tones of voice and hand gestures differentiate one communicator from the other. Eye contact
means demonstrating the focus and how the person is feeling. The clarity boys and saying
enough words on a topic or subject can be attractive more than the communicators who use
more words to express their vision. In addition to these, friendliness, confidence, empathy
and open mindedness help the communicators to show respect for the others and their ideas.
Being able to provide feedback and receive them are important communication skills. In case
of the job roles of the managers as well as supervisor needs to be able to find out the ways to
provide the Employees with constructive feedback. It can be through email, weekly status
updates or phone calls in every medium, the managers need to be clear in their statements so
that these can reach the employees more effectively and the desired outcome is attained
(Rutten et al. 2016). Through communications the managers can motivate their employees
and get support from them for introducing policies or regulations.
Akkermans et al. (2018), have pointed out that the students while obtaining
occupation specific knowledge as well as skills need also to develop the sets of career self-
management skills and resources so that we can help them to men over various career related
challenges successfully and stimulate their wellbeing from a performance and engagement in
the tasks. In this current study the authors have applied job demands resources theory in the
educational setting then suggested that the career adaptability and career competencies are
two important carrier resources which can predict what the life satisfaction as well as
academic performance of the business study students (Rowan-Kenyon et al. 2017).
Both Mishra and Mishra (2018) and Jackson and Wilton (2016) have pointed out the
importance of work integrated learning. In this regard the importance of having skills for
working in teams and getting along with the people with whom a person is working need to
be developed. In this global context with the organisations are being more local and cross-

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cultural the competency in working in teams consisting different types of people with
different background and knowledge is essential. For the managers the problem solving skills
are essential so that they can face the difficulties are the setbacks. According to Mishra, the
potentiality of solving problems at the time of adversity and making perfect decision is
expected from the managers in every organisation irrespective of their size and industries.
The problems can be known or unknown but the skills if utilised properly can result in
positive outcome.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the managers in this global business contexts need
to be more efficient than ever, they need to be capable of having interpersonal skills,
communication, problem solving skills, teamwork, initiative and organisational skills which
can help them to match all the criteria of the organisations. In this regard, the individuals
need to enhance the scope of learning about the competences and take all the support
from the trainings and other methods of developing skills. Knowing technology is
essential for operating in the companies which on the other hand can help to development of
knowledge both about the industries where they are working and the tools needed for
developing competencies are to be utilised properly.

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References:
Akkermans, J., Paradnike, K., Van der Heijden, B. & De Vos, A. 2018, "The Best of Both
Worlds: The Role of Career Adaptability and Career Competencies in Students' Well-Being
and Performance", FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY, vol. 9, pp. 1678.
Clark, T.S. and Wayment, H.A., 2017. Integrating Online Career-Development Skills in a
Management Course: Findings of Increased Career Confidence and Adult Development.
Journal of the Academy of Business Education, 18.
Froehlich, D.E., Liu, M. and Maria Van der Heijden, Beatrice Isabella Johanna 2018, "Work
in progress: the progression of competence-based employability", Career Development
International, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 230-244.
Jackson, D. & Wilton, N. 2016, "Developing career management competencies among
undergraduates and the role of work-integrated learning", Teaching in Higher Education, vol.
21, no. 3, pp. 266-286.
Mishra, S.K. & Mishra, D. 2018, "Essential Employability Skills Of Engineering Students
For It Sector", International Journal of Management Research and Reviews, vol. 8, no. 11,
pp. 14.
Oussii, A.A. & Klibi, M.F. 2017, "Accounting students’ perceptions of important business
communication skills for career success", Journal of Financial Reporting and
Accounting, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 208-225.
Rowan-Kenyon, H.T., Savitz-Romer, M., Ott, M.W., Swan, A.K. and Liu, P.P., 2017.
Finding conceptual coherence: Trends and alignment in the scholarship on noncognitive
skills and their role in college success and career readiness. In Higher education: Handbook
of theory and research (pp. 141-179). Springer, Cham.

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Rutten, M., Ros, A., Kuijpers, M. & Kreijns, K. 2016, "Usefulness of Social Network Sites
for Adolescents’ Development of Online Career Skills", Journal of Educational Technology
& Society, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 140-150.
Seo, G., Hedayati Mehdiabadi, A. & Huang, W. 2017, "Identifying core competencies to
advance female professors' careers: an exploratory study in United States academia", Journal
of Further and Higher Education, vol. 41, no. 6, pp. 741-759.