Report on Managing and Developing Careers: Self-Assessment

This report presents a student's self-assessment of their career development journey, drawing insights from career advice sessions and employability events at Western Sydney University. The student reflects on their self-awareness, identifying strengths in communication and networking, while acknowledging a need to improve time management skills. The report analyzes the value of these experiences, reconstructing the learning process and detailing the lessons learned, including the importance of self-reflection, setting goals, and taking proactive steps toward career advancement. The student outlines practical applications of these insights, such as participating in skill-building activities to improve time management and networking. The report also references academic literature to support the findings, emphasizing the significance of continuous learning, strategic analysis, and aligning skills with industry needs. The student aims to leverage these insights to enhance employability and achieve professional goals.

Running head: MANAGING AND DEVELOPING CAREERS
Managing and developing careers
Name of Student:
Name of College:
Authors Note:
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Contents
Evaluation of significance............................................................................................................................2
Reconstructing the experience....................................................................................................................2
Analysis........................................................................................................................................................3
Lessons learnt..............................................................................................................................................4
Applications.................................................................................................................................................4
References...................................................................................................................................................5
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Evaluation of significance
The relative value and the experience that I had from the first employability event where a career
advice session was conducted by Daniel Merza at Western Sydney University Paramatta campus
helped me understand my career opportunities and made me brainstorm the various potential
aspects related to my future career. I participated in a quiz which made me interpret my thinking
and self awareness through identification of my needs and wants in career aspirations and results
which I desired to attained. From another event where career advice was presented from
Rohilesh Singh the experience and relative value that I gained was to understand my skills that
were significant for employment. The events helped me reflect on self awareness, my needs,
desires, strengths and weakness giving me a clear picture in mind for my career path and the
approach I intend to take to reach to my goal (Tomlinson 2017). These events gave me a deeper
insight into my own self, towards my career goal and helped me built confidence and inspiration
to take a positive and well structured action based on thoughtful decisions.
Reconstructing the experience
The salient point that I had experienced from first event was learning about myself i.e. I gained
self awareness that included identifying areas where I am strong and good as well as recognising
the weak areas which I needed to work upon for improvement so that I could enhance my
employability skills. I learnt that concept of self awareness is quite vital to give clarity to ideas
and direction to thoughts as it my own realisation of needs and desires helped me understand my
individual characteristics, my own strong points and weakness as well as qualities that could
support my employability goals and areas that I needed to improve (Nimmi and Zakkariya 2016).
Overall in first event I got to identify myself and I realised that I am good in interacting with
people as during the event I made some new contacts as well as learnt about my deeper insights
on what goals I aspire in future. Moreover the self evaluation activity helped me understand my
practical knowhow on employable scenario and helped me rate myself on personal skills,
communication, technical and soft skills, reasoning and management etc which broadly helped
me understand my capabilities and attributes. Also I was given feedback on this activity which
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made me identify that I lacked in self management skills though I am good in technical
knowhow, specifically in time management skills as I lacked handling multi-tasking activities.
As such I needed to work upon this through better prioritisation and time division for each
activity to improve my time management skills that are vital for employment.
From another event I really got motivated and inspired to hear to advices given by Rohilesh to
deal with actions that are vital to improve chances for good employment and career in future. His
advice made me inspired as he advised to always take right action at right time and suggested not
to delay tasks, which inspired a positive outlook in me (IJ Hetty, Schreurs, de Cuyper, Jawahar
and Maria 2012). Also during this event practical insight on ways to work for a successful career
was shared by managers of Colliers property which was handy information as it motivated clear
thoughts of future goals. During both these events I got to learn about myself which helped me
identify my strengths, weakness, learn about my potential opportunities and helped me find
action steps that would be taken to improve my weak areas and learning thus enabling a better
decision making approach to improve my employability. I learnt that I needed to work upon time
management skills though I acquired sound technical understanding required for future career so
I have planned to participate in skill building activities of university such as participating in
group work and team assignment to learn and further improve time management and
prioritisation of tasks (Collet, Hine and Karen 2015). Also these activities gave me socialisation
environment where I was able to interact with other people and gained some good advices and
learning that would support my future endeavours by refining my skills.
Analysis
The learning experiences that I gained during the events helped me further improve my learning
of theoretical explanations and interpretations on self awareness, its importance for reflecting on
employability skills and identification of aspects that needs to be improved further. According to
Poon and Brownlow (2015) as self awareness and reflection theories helps to gain a deeper
reflective into inner self so during one of the activities of self evaluation conducted in the events
I realised my strengths like good communication, networking skills and technical knowhow as
well as identified by weakness in time management which I need to improve to enhance my
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chances for employability. Also as stated by Kulkarni and Chachadi (2014) learning should be
continuous in nature and must be carried lifelong for better career growth, strategic analysis and
skills enrichment in alignment with professional needs that keeps changing. Further from both
the events I experienced that undertaking a positive approach towards attaining career goals by
doing right tasks at right time helps in better decisions and fulfilment of goals. Also identifying
own career development needs and wants helps in better insight to improve current employment
as well as aspire for future development through continued learning process and refinement of
skills as per developing changes (Oluyomi 2016). Moreover the insight gained from practical
discussion from managers of Colliers property group helped me analyse the current needs of
industry which would help me prepare and acquire skills so that I land into a successful career as
desired by adapting to needs and evolutions of industry. Moreover I also realised that to attain
success in set goals I need to be well informed and should improve my networking so that flow
of information is smooth and useful to support my goals and I realised the significance of
organisational design which surrounds a positive behaviour that supports goals and mission of
organisation so I identified that I should prepare myself as is expected b industry to make myself
strongly employable.
Lessons learnt
The positive aspects that I have leant and which are worthy to be used in my future aspirations is
understanding of my own strengths, capabilities and weakness which has given me clear picture
of opportunities that I should expect and decisions I should take to improve my weak areas and
overcome those to turn them to future abilities. I also gained some good insight on manner I
should approach to prepare myself well for attaining the career goal and skills I should acquire
for better employability. These events has helped me analyse deeper self reflection which is
important to realise own needs and this evaluation has offered me clarity of understanding,
actions that I need to take and direction I should follow to achieve my career goals and in future
for better development through logical reasoning, continued learning and self evaluation.
Applications
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The knowledge that I have gained from these aspects is I have realised the significance of self
evaluation and reflection which always helps in better understanding of own capabilities and
weakness. Also I have realised the manner a career development goal can be planned and
attained for desirable outcomes (Ngat-Chin Lim 2015). During this event I have discovered that
I lack in time management which is an important employability skills so I have to practise and
learn how to divide, prioritise and plan tasks equally so that important things are done in
preference and less important ones can be planned and unimportant ones can be discarded which
will help me prepare and respond well in future situations.
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References
Collet, C., Hine, D., and Karen, d. P. (2015). Employability skills: Perspectives from a
knowledge-intensive industry. Education & Training, [Online] 57(5), 532-559. Available: doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ET-07-2014-0076 [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]
IJ Hetty, v. E., Schreurs, B., de Cuyper, N., Jawahar, I. M., and Maria C.W. Peeters. (2012). The
route to employability. Career Development International, [Online] 17(2), 104-119. Available:
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13620431211225304 [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]
Kulkarni, N., and Chachadi, A. H. (2014). Skills for employability: Employers' perspective.
SCMS Journal of Indian Management, [Online] 11(3), 64-70. Available:
https://search.proquest.com/docview/1628292177?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]
Ngat-Chin Lim. (2015). Towards an integrated academic assessment: Closing employers’
expectations? Education & Training, [Online] 57(2), 148-169. Available: doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ET-08-2013-0102 [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]
Nimmi, P. M., and Zakkariya, K. A. (2016). Developing metacognitive skills: A potential
intervention for employability enhancement. Journal of Contemporary Research in
Management, [Online] 11(3), 11-20. Available:
https://search.proquest.com/docview/1888717427?accountid=30552 [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]
Oluyomi, S. P. (2016). Employability development opportunities (EDOs) as measures of
students’ enhanced employability. Higher Education, Skills and Work - Based Learning,
[Online] 6(3), 288-304. Available: doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-05-2016-0024
[Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]
Poon, J., and Brownlow, M. (2015). Development of students’ commercial awareness within the
curriculum of professionally accredited courses. Education & Training, [Online] 57(4), 405-428.
Available: doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ET-12-2013-0145 [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]\
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Tomlinson, M. (2017). Forms of graduate capital and their relationship to graduate
employability. Education & Training, [Online] 59(4), 338-352. Available: doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ET-05-2016-0090 [Accessed on 1 Nov. 2018]
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