EDU10011: Future Careers - Learning for Future Careers - Portfolio Writing Assessment Answer

Future Careers Assignment

Assignment Task

This portfolio should be presented using the following headings below and will contain an account of your learning across this unit.Your Portfolio will consist of the following:

1. A critical reflection(incorporating scholarly references)on your key strengths,values, and other career influences and how these impact your career action plan.
2. A career action planthat is designed to help you achieve your short-term and medium-term goals. The plan should include ALL of the following information:

   • Short term (within one year)and medium term goals (within 2-3 years)– it should include both study and career goals.
   • Realistic steps (actions)you should under take in the next year and next 2-3 years to achieve your career goals. Make sure you link this with yourself-understanding and career knowledge.
   • A list of at least three barriers to achieving your actions with accompanying innovative solutions.

Appendices.

Certificates of Completion for quizzes for each of the following modules in Topic6:

• • Self-understanding 1
  • Self-understanding 2
  • Defining your opportunities
  • Career decision making
  • Branding myself

Note that Certificates of Completion will only be downloadable once you score 80% or higher on each quiz.

You may select to include copies of other relevant supporting materials in your Appendices as appropriate.

You must include at least 4 scholarly references(refereed journals, book chapters and reputable organisation websites) in your assessment.

Introduction

A career plan is a road map that takes an individual from choosing the right occupation which is suited for them and become employed with a company or an organization that will help them to reach their long term career goals. The report consists of an analysis of the future career plan of the author along with a critical reflection on the strengths and the areas of improvement. ALs the barriers to execute the career plan objectives have been mentioned along with innovative solutions to overcome these barriers.

Critical Reflection

One of the most important aspects for a person is their future career plan. In order to get a road map to an efficient career plan, a reflective exercise will help in outlining the strengths and the weakness and other influences which may affect the career plan

One of my biggest strengths which will help me in a long way is my communication skills. My friends and family have always told me than my speech is eloquent which will go extremely handy in my plan to join the sales department of a retail chain. I have always been a person who likes to socialize and sales will be the most apt fir not only with my skill set but also my interest. As a student in my younger days I always won awards in debates and was always interested in such type of competition. My listening skills have always been a positive aspect which helps to gain insights with respect to the conversation that I have been having with my peers or my teachers at university (Leiff, 2009).

My other strength lies in my analytical ability which allows me to be optimized in my analysis and finding. I try to find an optimum solution in case I have task t hand by looking at the problem from various perspectives. AS ales job demand as a high client involvement where each client is different hence this is a skills which can use to my advantage and convince each client accordingly.

One biggest drawback I feel which may have negative influence on my career in sales is my time engagement. I try to put in too much in a short amount of time which backfires and am not available to complete my tasks on time. For example if ma interested in reading a particular topic I get so carried away that I do not realize that I have other tasks to finish which get delayed. This has also in many cases resulted in me being late or important meeting and class tasks which gets reflected in a poor manner. Time management is an important aspect of a career plan and it is essential that if I want to make my career in sales I will have to attend a lot of meeting for which I cannot be late (Schein, 2006).

Hard work, determination and persistence are import areas which influence the achieving of a career plan hence it is important that I keep these in mind in order to achieve my goals

Career Action Plan

Choosing the right company for my career plan is extremely important and hence it’s important that I plan my career in an away which is effective and I have the right skill set to meet my goals. The career action plan is a road map which will allow me to outline various milestones and barriers that may come up while pursuing my objective.

Short term goal

My short term goal is to excel in all my assignment at university by putting in hard work and persistence such that I graduate from college with a distinction. At the same time in the next two years I want to read about the various retail companies and do an analysis to understand their growth and scope. This will allow me to put down a list of companies which I would like to join by the time I finish my course at university.

Medium term goal

My medium term goal is to join the sales executive team at a retail company which will help me further my acre in this goal and allow me to pursue my dreams. I would also like to take up additional modules in marketing which will help me in my career. I would also like to graduate from school with a distinction in the next two years as a result of my hard work and perseverance (Gray, 2007)

Steps taken

The steps that I would like to achieve the above goals is to ensure that I make a time table and follow my give task for the day to make a to do list not only for that day but for the week and month and do a review at the end of each month to ensure my progress, In this I would like to log the number of time is was late for an event or a meeting which cannot exceed more than 3 times a month.

Another step is to ensure that I increase my reading in every subject in addition to the ones which has been given by the tutor. This will help me to give a holistic understanding of my subjects and help me achieve my goal.

Another step is to make list of all the retail companies that am interested in and try to read up on those companies in a manner which will help me understand more about the kind of role they have in sales and their requirements. One plan where I would start is with the company website which has the entire information about the company and them requirements

I have also realized that in sales there are a number of other skills which are important which include pitching, making presentations, team building and finish targets. For the purpose of learning more in this aspect I would ask for the help of one of my uncle who works with the sales team in a big pharmaceutical company in Australia and request him to help me learn the other processes which will allow me to achieve my career objective (Neck & Manz, 2010)

Barriers and Solution

One of the biggest barriers that I see inn the achievement of my career plan is my time management skills. This may prove to be a major hindrance in my career objectives hence I intend on employing a Gannt chart in order to ensure that I fulfil my task on time and see the progress of my work. Gant chart is a widely used project management tool which is used by project managers to ensure that they have finished their task on time.

Another barrier is that I may not have the relevant experience to apply for a position which I genuinely want to do. Hence I intend on doing internships in sales which will help me get an idea about the kind of role that I may be expected to do and then seek opportunities on the basis of that, I will also apply for secondment by applying to fill up a temporary placed for an existing person to get more experience for a role in sales. Also the job interview to these position may prove to be challenging hence I would practice these interviews and od a thorough analysis on the type of questions that are asked in a sales interview along with things like grooming, presentation and image consulting.

The third barrier to my implementation of career plan is that in order to require additional training I may not get enough time to supplement my sills with additional training due to the amount of work that I already have in hand like university and gathering information about the companies that I want to apply to. In order to overcome this barrier I will use my holiday time to furnish my skills like joining workshops on confidence, voice modulation and other skills which will help me achieve my goal. This also include taking special training in excel and power point since there era many nuances in these application which can be used to enhance report making and presentation which is integral to any company (Hodgkinson & Healey, 2011)

Conclusion

It can be seen that there are a number of skills which are required to become successful sales executive and in order to be on my career path I need to work on am areas of improvement. The above plan allows me to address these issues and also gives innovative ways in overcoming the barriers that I will experience to meet my objectives.