Assessment Task 2: Professional Employability Plan Report - JCU

This report presents a comprehensive professional employability plan, focusing on the Australian engineering industry. It begins with an overview of contemporary recruitment trends and practices, highlighting the increasing shift to online resources and the use of social media. The report then critically evaluates the role of networking and relationship building in building social capital to improve employment outcomes, emphasizing the importance of strong ties and access to high-status contacts. The author reflects on career motivations to formulate short, medium, and long-term employment goals, including completing a master's degree, securing an entry-level position, and eventually owning a business. The report critically evaluates the skills required for the short-term goal, identifying strengths and development needs, and concludes by developing SMART actions to amplify strengths and address skill gaps, ensuring a structured approach to achieving the stated goals.

Assessment Task 2: Professional Employability Plan
Student Name:
Student Number:
University Name:

Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Overview of contemporary recruitment trends and practices in Australia’s engineering
industry.......................................................................................................................................2
Critically evaluate the role that networking and relationship building play to build your social
capital to increase your employment outcomes.........................................................................3
Reflect on your career motivations to formulate your employment goals in the short, medium
and long term..............................................................................................................................4
Critically evaluate the skills required in your short term (post graduation) career goal and
compare these with your strengths and development needs......................................................6
Develop SMART actions to amplify your strengths and increase your skill in your
development needs to achieve your stated short term goals......................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................8
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Introduction
This report study focuses on researching and constructing one’s own compelling professional
employability by analysing and developing a comprehension of the recruitment practices
within Australia’s engineering industry and the role of networking within the industry. This
will be followed by reflecting on the learner’s short, medium and long term career
motivations and goals, critical evaluation of the requisite skills for the short term goal, taking
up on own strengths and development needs in relation to the goals, and concluding with
researching and understanding SMART goal setting for developing own actions.
Discussion
Overview of contemporary recruitment trends and practices in Australia’s engineering
industry
With a compact labour market, economic pressures and volatility after the global financial
crisis, the Australian engineering industry had witnessed a unique set of constraints, making
them increasingly shifting to online resources - a contemporary recruitment trend and
practice. Certain trends that have emerged from online advertising of job vacancies comprise
of job boards, which are websites like Adzuna, CareerOne, Gumtree etc. employers use for
advertising the vacancies to job seekers who further use it for searching new job opportunities
meeting their qualification, skills and profession [1]. A large numbers of job seekers can be
reached through job boards advertising both general and specialized job. There also has been
a significant rise in the trend of employers directly notifying about current vacancies on the
careers section of their official pages thus, reflecting an enhanced stress on their reputation to
seek good talents. In addition, the trend of metasearch engine is also on a rise, using the web
for producing current vacancies by scanning job boards, employer or recruitment agency sites
in a single search. Another contemporary recruitment trend and practice is use of social
media. For advertising about upcoming vacancies, Australian engineering industry employers
are increasingly utilizing platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter as key recruiting
tool for referring personal or professional networks to vacancies advertised at other places.
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For knowing more about particular applicants applied for a vacancy, many employers also
scan their social media pages. Other than the above, print advertising, industry and personal
networking are also used by many employers in the engineering industry. Although
traditional recruitment had dependent on mass recruitment and print campaigns, emphasizing
education as the solution for unskilled workers, at present unskilled recruitment are also
taking place through job boards and recruitment agencies. Collaborative hiring wherein a
company’s entire employees team are involved in hiring, for example, such as employee
referrals and internal mobility programs, is also a rising contemporary recruitment trend and
practice that can be seen in the engineering industry, making the recruitment process more
democratic and diverse.
Critically evaluate the role that networking and relationship building play to build your
social capital to increase your employment outcomes
An important role is played by networking and relationship in building my social capital for
increasing the employment outcomes. Networks of relationships, marked by trust and
reciprocity comprise social capital. It has been observed that networking and building
relationships to build social capital has helped me learning about jobs and getting hired.
Information, emotional and financial support, and/or other resources are produced by social
capital. Often building on my social capital can result into strong ties in comparison to bridge
social capital, which is usually weak. It might be that individuals like me might be able to
gain access to these strong, bonding ties effortlessly and time and again will help me in
increasing employment outcomes and self-sufficiency [2]. Since reciprocity is often
implicitly required by social networking, as a low-income individual, social networks is small
or weak for me because of lacking family or other social connections to institutions like
higher education, vital for upward economic mobility apart from relations with family
members, friends, or others narrowed by my inability for reciprocating completely. Building
networks and relationships to higher-status individuals can significantly contribute in helping
me providing increased employment opportunities. In addition, networking and relationship
building can help me in attaining upward mobility through achievement of status. A strong
impact on occupational prestige and job sector can be seen, derived from the status of a
contact. Networking and relationships with high-status contacts can be leading to better pay
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employment outcomes for me by accessing my social network as a strategy for searching a
good job.
Reflect on your career motivations to formulate your employment goals in the short,
medium and long term
For the achievement of long-term goals, first attaining a set of short-term goals will be
needed for me. Depending on the final long-term goals of mine, several days, weeks,
months, or even a few years in completing might be taken by the medium-term (this year and
while in college) and short-term goals (today, this week, and this month). Getting a career
plan for helping me maintaining a sense of direction besides driving me to work towards the
end goal is the motivation of mine for formulating the employment goals in short, medium
and long-term. The plan been carefully considered and planned, practical and flexible is also
another career motivation. I will not be looking into it as set-in-stone plan for my
professional life, instead as a road map that might be growing and changing as I keep
moving through the world. Pursuing water resources management course in master of
engineering in James Cook University, the career motivations to formulate my employment
goals in short, medium and long-term are
Short term goal (present – 2 years from now)
 Completing my post-graduation course of engineering in water resources
management.
 Finding an entry-level position in the industry chosen by me.
For getting the first goal accomplished of completing my Master’s with a higher academic
standing, I will be giving my achievement a boost by connecting with the instructors for more
expanded feedbacks, start a peer study group and set aside additional time for reviewing my
notes. To do all this timeline will be created to break down the plan into monthly increments
for ensuring there is sufficient time for me in completing every step practically, and giving
myself a checklist for what I need to finish each month.
Medium term goals (2 – 5 years from now)
 Working upwards for becoming a mid-level manager or supervisor.
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 Getting a professional network developed with the contacts at all levels in the industry
chosen by me.
Built on the short term goal, there will be no need for including many specific action steps.
Unlike my short-term goal, it will be fine for the goal in being lesser specific here. The key in
a medium-term goal is to have an overall sense of the steps that may be taken by me. Getting
this information identified earlier will contribute in keeping my short-term goal updated. For
achieving these goals, time will be set aside by me for reinforcing the contacts with related
references. To do this, timeline using periods of 6-12 months will be built by me, considering
time-based factors that are not under my control such as application deadlines etc.
Long term goal (5+ years from now)
 Owning and operating an independent business
The career plan’s final section as expected will not be the most hypothetical, but
apparently also the most exciting as it will be centring my most ambitious professional
goals. My ‘big goal’ will be identified here in terms of after spending years on my career
where I intend to professionally stand. I will be building the road planned for my short-
and medium-term career reflections to ensure most or all my plans are a success besides
questioning myself on how I will be equipped better for getting these career ambitions
pursued. Own and operate a business will be calling for financial resources. Making use
of 5-year blocks for 5+, 10+ and 15+ years from now, a timeline will be built by me with
intent for better comprehending the requisite steps I will be taking today and tomorrow.
Critically evaluate the skills required in your short term (post-graduation) career goal
and compare these with your strengths and development needs
The skills required in my short-term (post-graduation) career goals are
Planning and goal setting
Prioritising is the skill required here. For simultaneous achievement of multiple goals setting
priority is the most practical way. To get started, a list of my goals will be made and inputs
from my instructors will be gained followed by sorting them based on importance. Setting
clear and précised goals, determining a timeline for it and outlining a detailed action plan is
important. This skill gets reflected from my strength of placing focus on planning and
organizing my work, right from studying to preparing assignments etc. This strength helps
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me into getting my routine and tasks planned and ensuring keeping up with all the deadlines
that are given to me. Sticking to timelines allotted shows that delivering the task can always
be expected from me.
Communication skills
This is skill is required for my short-term career goal as it will be helping me in studies,
career development, job interview, and social networking. It will help me gaining practical
and deeper knowledge from instructors in subject of my interest. At times I might need to ask
queries and discuss my doubts for better learning. However, I need to develop this skill as
because of low confidence I hesitate in questioning. Working on this area not only will be
helping me listening and understanding teachers’ viewpoint during classes, I can confidently
put forward my queries. Communication skills will also help in my career development while
interacting with interviewers or building social networks, bringing a visible difference in my
personality.
Develop SMART actions to amplify your strengths and increase your skill in your
development needs to achieve your stated short term goals.
To amplify my planning and goal setting strength and increase the communication skill the
SMART actions are-
Specific- for submitting a presentation due in 5 days for example, the actions that I will take
is to get the first draft ready on day one followed by an improved draft on day two. Next day
will practice the oral presentation delivery, and on fourth day will be refining the presentation
and practice delivery. By fifth day I will be prepared for giving the final presentation in class.
Develop communication skills for increasing asking queries by 30%.
Measurable- for measuring my progress and effectiveness, benchmarks will be defined
carefully. For instance, to decide completing 20% of my assignment next week, the goal will
be further broken into daily measurable goals. I will commit to do at least one task every day
next week and will measure my daily performance through checklist. 30% increase in asking
queries.
Attainable- being reasonable in setting goals will be ensured through time management for
reaching my projections, leaving no poor excuses in my inability to achieve the goal. In case
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of not meeting the goals, I will be having good reasons for correcting them in following
week. Attend communication skills workshop and watch online debates.
Realistic- will be focusing on my aim that is completing a presentation and assignment by
positively stating them. Development of my communication skills will bring improvement in
the clarity in what I want to ask, and save wasting of time.
Timely- for example, submitting a presentation due in 5 days and completing 20% of my
assignment next week will help me in establishing the time limit needed to achieve the goal.
30% improvement in communication at classes in 6 months.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that employability outcomes can be maximized through professional
employability plan. Students should be encouraged in considering how they would like to
approach their employability development, and setting out a plan for get it done.
References
[1] M. Fryczyńska and A. Ivanova, "The impact of networking behaviours and individual
social capital related to work on perceived career satisfaction and its prospects: The case of
Poland ", Journal of East European Management Studies, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 324-346, 2019.
[2] V. Garbuz and P. Topala, “The trend of higher engineering education towards achieving
technological development” IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering,
Vol. 591, no. 1, p. 012-090, IOP Publishing, 2019.
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