Professional Practice Preparation Report: Career Goals and Interview

This report delves into the multifaceted aspects of professional practice preparation. It begins by outlining personal goals, emphasizing the importance of setting objectives for a fulfilling life and career. The report explores various aspects of career development, including the significance of career paths, the impact of internal and external rewards, and strategies for managing workplace stress and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. It highlights the importance of commitments to parents and the workplace. The report further examines work-related and personal interests, intellectual capacity, and the ability to take responsibility. The report includes a self-assessment chart for organizing, socializing, and communicating. The report also presents an interview report with the operations manager of Sony Electronics, providing insights into his career path, educational background, and perspectives on the current workforce. The report concludes by discussing the values and attitudes essential for professional success.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE PREPARATION
Professional practice preparation
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Part 1................................................................................................................................................3
Personal Goals.................................................................................................................................3
Summary of Life and Goals.............................................................................................................3
Part 3................................................................................................................................................5
Part 4................................................................................................................................................5
Part 5................................................................................................................................................6
Part 6................................................................................................................................................6
Special Assessment Skills................................................................................................................6
Personal Goals.................................................................................................................................6
Values and Attitudes........................................................................................................................7
Interview Report..............................................................................................................................8
Table No 1- Professional Resume.................................................................................................14
Letter of Application for the Selection Criterion...........................................................................14
Statement Addressing Selection Criterion.....................................................................................16
Table No 2- Goal Settings Schedule..............................................................................................17
References......................................................................................................................................18

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Introduction
Goal setting is the process for thinking about the ideal future and to motivate oneself in
such a way that it turns the vision of the future into a reality. The process by which people set
goals for themselves to chose the perfect way that they want to go. Every people has a set of
goals that is set in his mind.
Part 1
Personal Goals
Summary of Life and Goals
Goals are the most important part in the life of a person. The absence of goals makes life
very much ordinary and plain and makes it difficult for the people to achieve the peak of success.
I personally have set up my own set of goals and objectives that would help me to attain success
in my life. I am an avid lover of travelling and have a special interest for wildlife. I have the goal
to visit Africa to experience the vast range of wildlife in the continent. Professionally my goals
are to become a good and dedicated employee in my office. I also dream of climbing the
professional steps of success in my office gradually.
Career is very much important in one’s life. This is because of a number of reasons.
Career helps to provide a sense of direction to my life. It also provides a general structure to life
as because achieving career goals helps us to follow the right direction in life and deviates us
from choosing any wrong directions (Wenger et al. 2014). A right path allows us to be social and
make many friends in life. External rewards provided to the employees of the company include
the rewards that come from an external source i.e. the employers. It has a direct relation to the

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job performance of the employees. Some external rewards are salary, bonus, fringe benefits,
promotion, fringe benefits, profit sharing and many more as such. Internal rewards on the other
hand refer to the non physical rewards that cannot be seen or touched but they can be
emotionally felt by the people receiving the rewards. Some of the examples of internal rewards
are words of praise from seniors, recognition, taking pride from the job.
Avoiding job stress and low morale is another challenge of workplace. Stress and low
morale will affect the rate of work which in turn will harm the productivity. If a job is providing
too much stress it should be better to leave the job and search for any other job (Sinsky et al.
2013). Modifying job situation will also seem to be stressful and boring at that time. It is better to
approach the operations manager or the supervisor at that particular time and request him for a
change in the work pattern.
The most important commitment in one’s life is the parents and the responsibilities
towards them. It is because of them that people have been able to achieve the present place. The
primary importance can never shift from parents to anything else (Healy 2014). The secondary
commitment is the office or workplace. While some may argue about the primary and secondary
importance from the personal front it would always be the same. Striking a balance between both
the responsibilities is a huge task for anyone. To maintain a perfect balance between personal
and professional life one have to first create a routine to maintain a perfect time management in
between both my commitments (Preiser 2015).

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Part 3
Part 3 of the course explains the details about the interests that a person have in his
personal and professional life. Some of the work related interests are, analyzing a business to
determine how it could operate better, managing a business or organization, managing assets and
resources of a company, planning and developing the company and many more as such
(Novakovich et al. 2017). Whereas the personal interests of an individual refers to his likings like
he may like a sport, a TV program or he may have some interest on some other person in the
workplace or anywhere else.
Part 4
The intellectual capacity of a person is the ability of the person to build, think, reason or
analyze something by applying his cognitive intelligence. Intellectual capacity has helped people
to deduce, analyze the right decisions quite early than the others. The intellectual capacity is
surely one of the personal assets and helps people to have a strategic advantage over others both
in the personal front and also in the professional front (Moon 2013).
A popular quote is “Responsibility brings immense power”. This has been proved
everywhere in the world. I myself showed immense responsibility in the company where I
showed my sense of responsibility. My earlier company dealt with manufacturing and storing of
woolen materials. I still remember that very day, we were scheduled to supply a large
consignment to one of our most old and trusted client. The time when I entered office I saw
gloomy faces of employees (Montgomery 2017). I got an idea about something bad has
happened and managed to learn the whole thing from one of the executives. Our consignment
which was scheduled to be delivered the next day was damaged by unanimous reasons. I decided

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not to search for the reasons and immediately called up the senior supervisor and informed him
about the matter. However instead of advising me he left it out to me to decide the possible way
out of the situation. I was lost in thoughts thinking about the consequences of such damage as we
would surely be losing one of our premium clients. I decided to be honest and inform the client
about the original situation and promised them of an urgent replacement within 15 days. I took
the full responsibility of managing the whole task by myself. Finally I was able to provide the
consignment within time to the client. My honesty impressed my client and they praised heavily
about me. Thus this whole task proved my capability as a leader who can shoulder every
responsibility of an organization and is free to face challenging situations.
Part 5
The chart assessing the capabilities of a particular person is shown in Part 5 of the course.
It shows a person’s ability to organize, socialize and communicate within the workplace or in
personal space (Miley et al. 2016). The chart also has options on self managing and physical
activities that are performed by different individuals.
Part 6
Special Assessment Skills
Personal Goals
1. The things that people want mostly in rest of their life are:
a. To be one of the most successful in my life
b. To scale unimaginable heights
c. To discover new people

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d. To visit different places of the world
2. The main immediate goals of my life are;
a. To simply break into a field.
b. As a college student I need to start building a strong presence in the industry
c. When I will be working for a company I would respect my job and ensure that I enjoy
the job that I do
3. The long term goals that people have are;
a. Earning new responsibilities within the company
b. Reach higher positions in the company by utilizing talent
c. Help the company to succeed in every field
4. It is a tricky question as to where I would see myself in the coming 5 to 10 years. In my
opinion I will be concentrating more on my immediate present than to think about what
the future has in store for me. I may rise above ranks in my office or I may experience a
fall in the ranks. It is better for me to stress on my present needs and achieve those to
make the coming 5 to 10 years a successful one.
Values and Attitudes
1. I would describe the position of work in my life as the most inevitable part. Work makes
a people organized and responsible and absence of such a necessary item in life will

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make me dull and lazy (Miley et al. 2016). Thus work will be the most prioritized in my
life.
2. My current and expected commitments in my life are to take up the responsibilities of my
parents and look after them and secondly to serve all the responsibilities of my
workplace.
3. The most important rewards in my career were the first promotion and recognition which
I received from the office. I regard it the best as that was something which I received for
the first time and thus it has a special recognition in my heart.
Interview Report
Interview Report as on August 5, 2017. I interviewed John Edwards who is the new
operations manager of Sony Electronics in Sydney. The place of the interview was Riverview
Hotel located on the banks of Sydney River. I fixed the interview at lunch and reserved a table
for both of us. We greeted each other with pleasantries and headed straight to the conversation.
At first I asked him to describe about his job. His job is to coordinate all the operations of the
company which plays a leading role in managing the raw materials and personnel. He explained
that he has the responsibility to manage the inventory, purchase and supply the different kinds of
materials from the suppliers and to the customers. The management of the company in Sydney
has asked him to shoulder some additional responsibilities of Human Resources like screening
some of the new recruits of operations team, training them on different activities of operations
and planning. Mr. John had begun his career with a local electronic giant in the year 2005.
Working there for 6 years and being promoted to a assistant manager in the company he gathered

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a lot of experience. In the year 2011 he joined Panasonic as an Assistant Operations manager
where he worked with efficiency for another 4 years. However the lack of proper promotion
chances forced him to quit the organization. He was also in search of a new challenge elsewhere
which made up his mind to join Sony Electronics Sydney. He was appointed as one of the Senior
Operations in charge which is a post higher than the Assistant operations manager but a post
lower than the Operations manager. His hard work and dedication paid off when he was
rewarded with the post of the Operations manager in charge as the previous operations manager
was promoted to a different post.
His educational qualification was an envious one. He passed the secondary in the year
1996 from a reputed high school of Sydney. His dream of pursuing a MBA was fulfilled when he
enrolled himself in the BBA course of Monash University Australia. He completed his masters in
business administration in the year 2004 from the same university and also conducted a practical
training on some special courses that helped him to get acquainted with some of the latest
technology that different company uses to manage their daily activities. When Mr. Edwards
asked about his job role seemed to be very pleased in his current role as an operations manager
of Sony Electronics. He was however prompt to reply that he also enjoyed his previous
workplaces and gathered a lot of experience from there. He explained that he has a special
attraction for working with younger employees and says that the new generation of workers is
much more advanced than they used to be. Mr. Edwards engages himself in training the new
wards of all the complex activities that they have to perform while they work for the company.
The training program is scheduled by him which is believed to be one of the best in the industry.
He explained that the training program helps the new employees to have an adequate knowledge
of the extrinsic and intrinsic factors that determine the working of the company. During his stint

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as an undergraduate student he attended two internship sessions with one of the leading
manufacturing companies of Australia.
Next I asked him about his passion both personal as well as professional. He described sports
cars as one of his oldest passions that date back to his schooldays. Professionally he described
solving complex problems and taking and completing additional responsibilities with ease
provides him immense pleasure. His special liking for working together as a team is also a point
that was noted by me. He explained that team work helps the whole team to stay dedicated and
motivated towards their work. He stated that prior to his joining there were some employees
among the team who were not motivated enough to perform well and lacked the spark in them to
achieve the results. He stated that when he entered the scene he decided to glue the team together
so that they can perform as a joint team and make sure that everyone of the team comes to the
help of each other thus making the team one of the best in the organization and also ensuring a
huge success. “The fact that I work with a large number of employees both old and new and give
them a new opportunity each and every day is incredible and makes me feel better” was the
answer when I asked him about his feelings on working with a large number of people in the
organization. He describes that he takes a challenge on recruiting new individuals in the
organization. Meeting new people, hearing different answers and also learning new things from
many of the new candidates is enjoyed by him. He says that he uses some special screening
methods to test the potential of the candidates. He explains that “I always ask simple but tricky
questions to the candidates and test their potential”. The questions include;
1. Why do you think the company will recruit you?
2. How can you use the technological components of the company to improve your
performance in the company?

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3. How can you see yourself after 5 to 10 years in the company?
According to him the candidates always tends to provide general answers to such
questions which diminishes their chances of recruitment. He selects the ones who
provide the best answers to the questions. Mr. Edward also assesses the different skills and
intelligence levels of the ones who are recruited in the industry.
One of the main tasks which he describes to be the toughest among all is the management
of the financial resources of the organization. He is assigned by the company to play an
important role in the budgeting, controlling costs and making sure to keep the organization on a
financial track (Lee and Brett 2015). I asked him whether he performs any other financial
operations to which he replied that financial operations is a vast task including forecasting the
business, preparing the sales reports of the company and ensuring the implementation of strategic
planning to reduce the costs of operating the business. He tells that he performs such tasks by
cost benefit analysis to improve the efficiency of the organization and save time. Nowadays
modern operations management even includes sustainability in the financial equation. He replied
that his team supervised by him plays a leading role in managing both raw materials and
personnel. As mentioned earlier purchasing and supply is very much important to the job. The
main challenge according to him lies in communicating properly with all the team members of
the organization. Communicating properly is one of the necessary needs of the organization as
because the absence of a proper communication renders the organization ineffective and affects
its performance (Little 2014). I was hesitant to ask about his salary but finally asked about it as I
had to incorporate it in my interview. I saw a clear feeling of discomfort in his face when I asked
the question and immediately decided not to proceed further on the following question. Finally I
asked him about his strengths and motivating factors which has made him what he currently is.

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He replied that the largest strength is his honesty and dedication both in his personal as well as
his professional life. He said that he does not take the help of others while motivating himself
rather he is the one who motivates himself on his own. He believes that to achieve success he has
to climb through the failures of life.
Comparing the following qualities with such a successful person was beyond my imagination
but I found some of the characteristics of the man similar to me like being honest both in the
personal as well as the professional front and enjoying the work which I do. The interview lasted
for 2 hours as we had our lunch in the meantime. I thanked Mr. Edwards a lot to make out time
from his busy schedule and help me out. After a thorough analysis of the report I found out that
my career choices were in accordance to my strengths.
My professional resume is attached in the next page of this report: