Essential Study and Employment Skills: A Self-Assessment Report

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Essential Study and Employment Skills

Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................ 3
2.0 Audit and Evaluation of Key Skills..............................................................................4
3.0 Personal Development Research and Planning.......................................................10
4.0 Conclusion............................................................................................................... 15
Reference List................................................................................................................ 16
Appendices.................................................................................................................... 18
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1.0 Introduction
Conducting a research requires proficient understanding of the issues that might have
been faced. It is an important thing to make changes in the situation and keep it directed
towards the requirements. In the following part and reflective study is going to be
developed with alignment to the skills and the previous group activities that are done by
the team. This is going to help in skill evaluation and management of the studies that
are related with future skill assessment. Brain Cancer related charity and fundraising is
mainly considered in this study. Proper teamwork related activities are considered in
this phase and initiation of project management was done accordingly.
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2.0 Audit and Evaluation of Key Skills
Strength
 Good auditing, budgeting and
financial management
 Problem solving skills
 Flexible thinker
Weakness
 Presentation skill
 Conflict management
Opportunities
 Making a proficient career
 Becoming a leader of a team
Threats
 Being emotional in nature
 Having less confidence
Table 1: SWOT
Assess and reflect upon your individual development
The change making process in association with the requirements, make a person
developed in all aspects. The management of self-abilities and implementing changes in
organised characters is the most important thing to consider (Zhang and Chen, 2016). It
is necessary for developing efficiency of one person and productive for any of the job
that will be offered to them. Efficiency is a major factor to consider in order making a
significant change in the situation management process. I have seen that I need to
make some developments and in the group exercise, I have learned many things for
myself. For an example, I have to make betterment in tone when I am stressed because
sometimes I am bit louder.
I will work as a team so activities can be completed on time. This is the most important
thing to be considered because in the future being a team performer will help me
surviving the issues that one person faces in a group work. I became more group
performer, and apart from that, my communication skills got better as well. I am a good
budgeting expert and hence the group decided to give me the chance to handle the
calculations. Apart from that, I got an opportunity to analyse the situation and my
analytical skills were polished during the fund raising process. The fund collection and
keeping a record was hectic for them and I helped them out in this process.
2.1 Individual skill development evaluation
Belbin’s Team Role
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There are total nine roles and they are resource investigator, team worker, coordinator,
monitor, plant, specialist, shaper, implementer and finisher (Mathieu et al., 2015.). A
team always contains people who have these responsibilities. In our team, I was the
person who was the main resource investigator because budgeting and financing
process was my role to perform. I was the specialist of finance management process.
Implementing something that can make the funding process grow was my responsibility.
In the following segment, some of the skills are described that helped me in fulfilling my
duties effectively.
Figure 1: Belbin’s team role
(Source: Linkedin.com, 2018)
 Teamwork
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In terms of teamwork, I think I have the quality and I have the patience as well to listen
to my team members. It is seen that in some cases people become more reluctant to
get the job done but I have the spirit to wait and take initiatives as a team. However, I
had issues initially during group discussion but soon it got sorted by giving priorities to
the team members’ opinion and listening to them.
 Communications
Communication can be done in different manners and selecting one medium is
depending on the situations in which a person is (Gallagher, 2016). I strongly prefer
speaking to the people because it is more flexible and I feel more relaxed to the
situation as well. It is easy to maintain tone to make people understand what the mood
of one person is. It is observed that I have the quality to make changes in accordance
with the needs. My team members affirm that I am a proper communicator and while
communicating with them I did not feel any kind of issues. In the initial phase, issues
have been faced while interacting with the people who are our initial respondents but
soon I became free.
 Problem solving
Issues arise in a group performance and our group was nothing different. Issues related
to making a cost count arise and I took the matter into my hand. This is seen that in
terms of solving issues I have managed the best kind of response as well. It is seen that
I managed the issues associated with cost counting with proper kind of tools like
Microsoft Excel. This is a very good thing to be considered from the point of a group
performer.
 Organization
It is important that a person is being more organised in a group activity and it is
important that every respondent is a bit more thinker about this perspective. I am an
organised person from the beginning, but it was one of the first public group exercises
and in this case I have faced issues in the beginning and I have solved it as well. I
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prioritised the needs of the initiative and I became more organised in terms of fulfilling
the responsibilities that were bestowed on me.
 Flexible
Handling the situation is a necessary thing to be considered and in a flexible
environment, it is easy to do that. As a person, I am flexible and I have faced some
issues like cost counting matters and others in a proficient manner. In the beginning I
was unable to make my group members to believe in my approach style but after seeing
my capability of performing in accordance with the requirement my group, members
considered me as a flexible person who can handle the technical issues and the
management problems as well.
 Working under pressure
The process of working in a proficient state is easy for any person but working under
pressure is a very important thing (Carranza et al., 2018). A situation arises in the group
activity where I have seen that I have to manage the financial conditions of the project
and have to be available for the operational agendas of the group. This was a very
important thing to be considered and in a pressured situation, I managed that as well. I
learned the process of performing two tasks together with emphasising some more time
to the people and this resulted in a productive manner.
 Budgeting and finance
I have the art of making people aware of the conditions that are associated with the
process. I am the person responsible for the budgeting process and this has been seen
that the finance management process was polished as well. This is seen that the
regular process of keeping record was full of hindrance and that is why I opted for the
technical approach and that made the entire process easier. This helped the budgeting
process as well as polished my technical skills too.
Demonstration of individual development and examples
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In this part, I would like to state the best examples for my individual developments in the
group exercise. I have seen that being a part of the group, I have not been properly
communicative. I thought that this is a major factor to be considered and I thought that I
have to work on that. My other fellow team participants need to receive better
performance from my end and I should be a better contributor to them. I tried to handle
the financial segment because I am a skilled person in terms of making budgets and
other things. This made them assured of the factors that the fund is going to be handled
by a proficient person.
I tried to do my best and I started to keep records in a excel sheet with a maintained
table. This table I shared with two of my team members on regular basis and I explained
the changes in it. This helped in building my confidence regarding communication and
they got comfortable with me. This is my development that I have witnessed. I have
managed the barriers among us and made a better communication possible by doing
my work properly (Magnusson, 2015).
Reflection on individual contribution and team performance
In the process of making a team effort, the contribution of every person is a necessary.
The services have to be managed in a proficient manner and in the upcoming days, this
is going to make a significant improvement. I am the person who planned to make some
changes in the financial calculation keeping process and designing the flyers for the
campaign. People need to be attracted to the initiative and therefore I suggested that
we must have some slogans, which can make people understand what is the purpose of
the initiative. I preferred to keep track of the financial side so that issues related with
financial constraints do not develop.
I managed the entire financial side and helped in designing the flyers as well which is a
necessary equipment of the campaign. There are many cases where the design related
conflicts arise but that was sorted easily I have kept a count of how many people visited
and the campaign and how they contributed in the process. The main aspect was
keeping the entire team connected to a certain purpose and in that; I was capable of
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making a proficient contribution. I have seen that I have managed the issues associated
with the less understanding of budgeting process
Reflection on flyer making and innovative slogan thinking
I have the least experience of any kind of artwork. I have the analytical skills that helped
in making a proficient contribution to the process. I have analysed what kind of
initiatives are needed to be taken and how the people who are going to give us the
money we need will be connected to the initiative. I have found that people are
connective if some activities are made. In this segment, we have decided to make some
flyers where the information will be added and the slogans will emotionally connect
people and make them understand what kind of menace a Brain Cancer is and how the
future of our nation needs to be protected.
I have suggested some of the slogans and at the end we come up with some lines and
one of those lines is “If the children are OUR future why don’t we do something to
ensure THEIR future?”
I have helped in making some lines as well and in the flyer making process I have
suggested some designs as well. Two of the other members supported me really well
and it is seen that their help was adequate to develop my searching skills associated
with the modifications of my skills.
Referring to qualitative and quantitative data
In this case, the team members stated that they have seen a good amount of change in
my attitude and approach process. My peers’ review was supportive and they have
given the best suggestions possible. In terms of having a better kind of quantitative
analysis I would like to highlight that, the entire process was estimated to have a cost
benefit of 60 £.
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Total funds collected
Number of respondnets
Average
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Chart Title
Figure 2: Graph
(Source: Created by learner)
The survey process was successful as around 80 people responded to it and it is found
that among them 25% people were from 60-70 age group and they were middle class
citizens. Rest of the people were from 20-45 years age group and they were middle
class as well. It is found that the older ones were more empathetic to our goals and that
is why this can be considered as a successful initiative.
3.0 Personal Development Research and Planning
Considering key study and employment skills
There are different types of skills in a persons and they can be divided into two parts
like study skills and employment skills.
Study skills
Some of the study skills are given in the following segment and they are
Organised
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It is important for a student from business management to be organised. Being
organised is an important aspect because this is going to help in making suitable
changes in the approach process to make productive changes in the study period.
Critical thinker
Being an analytical thinker is an important thing and in the coming period of life thinking
from the perspective of an analyst is going to make a business student more precise
decision taker in life (Jolley et al., 2016). This will effect in professional life as well.
Multi-tasker
Being a multi-tasker is going to help in taking more projects in the same time and those
will be completed simultaneously (Chan et al., 2015). This will raise the efficiency of the
students and in professional life; handling excess work pressure will be easier.
Communication
Having better communication will help in expressing problems that are being faced by
the students. Good communication will help in building confidence and that is a very
important thing for them.
Group working
Working in a group makes problems solved in an easier process. On the other hand,
ideas related to a particular aspect will be mixed and something new might develop as
well (Lauby-Secretan et al., 2016). This is going to help in making certain
developments that could not have been made if one student stayed in isolation during
his academic life.
Employment skill
Some of the employment skills are
Analytical thinking
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Thinking in an analytical process is going to make things easy. In depth analysis
becomes easier as well. On the other hand having issues associated with
misconception is going to be decreased with this (World Economic Forum, 2016). It is a
necessary thing to consider and in the future, this will help in making changes in the
system.
Budgeting
Planning the financial costing is a major skill for a professional. This is a major factor to
consider and in order to be helpful for an organisation, budgeting with a market demand
analysis is a necessary thing to consider.
Working well under pressure
Working under pressure makes one employee important from the rest. The person must
be trained as well to give optimum performance. Being psychologically strong is going
to help in making a person efficient in high work pressure.
Determining areas of development
There is no one in the world that can be regarded as perfect. There are different areas
that can be developed and it is seen that the development process must be initiated
from the personal skill analysis. It can be stated that I have to improve my
communication skills, technical skills conflict management skills and presentations
skills.
The skills are important for me to be a part of the professionals. In the future these skills
will help me in becoming a successful professional. Being a person with efficiency is not
always prioritised in the professional segment, but having perseverance is necessary
(Moore et al., 2018). I need to improve my communication skills to make my team
aware of what I am thinking. The conflict management skill will help in making changes
in the situation as well.
Exploring learning opportunities in University
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