Career Development Portfolio: Career Aspirations, Reflection of the Skill Development, Career Management Action Plan - Essay Example

?Career Development Portfolio Table of Contents The PDP 3 Overview 3 Career Aspirations 3 Reflection of the Skill Development 7 Career Management Action Plan 10 The CV 12 References 17 The PDP Overview Personal Development Portfolio is considered as the major tool for an individual to gain growth with regards to his/her career. Similarly, Personal Development Plan is determined to be a mechanism which enables an individual to assess his/her inner skills and help to identify his/her strengths as well as weaknesses. In addition, the plan also assists in recognising the prime causes of the strengths and weaknesses possessed by an individual providing him/her with an opportunity to enhance the strengths and minimise the weaknesses. Thus, this helps in structuring the effort of an individual towards improvement in the required areas (Pearson Education, 2011). The Personal Development Portfolio is important as one need to develop plan for the future context in order to attain the determined objective and career growth. With this concern, it is quite essential to identify the strengths and the weaknesses within own self as it is likely to prove immensely beneficial for assisting the individual in paving the path for the bright future. Career Aspirations I have worked as Medical Receptionist, Medical Secretarial, and Personal Assistant and also as Switchboard Operator. I am keen to build my career within the domain of human resource management. I have worked in the field of customer service that gave me an experience of about 4 years in dealing with the customers. I have been part of Synthom as the customer executive and always gained appreciation for my quality work. Since then, I have noticed that I enjoy working for satisfying the query and need of the people. I have always wanted to be a part of the administration and work for the benefit of the personnel working over there. It is worth mentioning that an organisation comprises of a group of employees working within it. At times, due to miscommunication or misinterpretation, a sense of conflict may occur amid the employees in an organisation. I want to be the one who can understand the point of view of the employees as well as the administration and convey the message accordingly. In my past job as a customer executive, I have always enjoyed serving the people. Taking the fact as a motivational factor, I want to develop my career in the field of Human Resource (HR) and work as the person who is responsible for problem solving and minimising the gap among the employees and the authority. Initially, I want to join as a trainee to gain the necessary knowledge about the post of the HR and then I want to focus my efforts towards the Training and Development sector. I believe in teamwork and according to my prior experiences, I can handle new employees effectively and have the potential in motivating them into contributing efficiently in the organisational processes. Later, I would emphasise on gradually developing myself as an efficient team leader. Human Resource is one of the very important departments of an organisation. The job profile in this managerial segment is concerned about looking after the welfare of the employees and the resources working in the organisation. In the process, I want to progress as the HR executive and then as a HR manager. I have good communication skills and enjoy interacting with people on professional level. I also believe that pursuing career in HR will prove worthy and help me to enhance my communication skills. This will also make be knowledgeable about every facets of the HR such as Pension and Benefit Administration, phases implicated in recruitment process and above all, employee relations. Five years down the line, I want to be in the position of the HR manager in an organisation of repute and also want to establish a fundamentally strong team. This can be gained through tremendous hard work. Self belief and self development will also play an effective part in the process. Among my various skills, listening and learning tend to be one of my major proficiencies. My desire is to work with an organisation which provides me with the opportunity to grow my skills relative as both professionally and personally. HR managers need to have strong and effective communication skills as he or she needs to communicate with the working personnel and make sure that the massage is delivered adequately to avoid any kind of conflict. The job description of HR includes keeping track of all the employees’ progresses as well. The HR is responsible of keeping record with respect to Workman’s compensation, employees’ salaries, and their leaves along with other benefits. The HR is also responsible for keeping record of the health and medical insurance of each and every employee. Furthermore, the HR needs to have a detail about the governmental regulations along with other legal obligations and need to see whether they are satisfied according to the requirement. HR is the person who works as the bridge between the higher authority and the employees of the organisation. One of the important roles of the HR is to look after the complaints of the employees, if any and try to resolve it by own or (if required) can take the issue to the higher level. Maintaining an adequate and peaceful environment for work and if necessary provide with the counselling to the required employees are among the important responsibilities of the HR (Job Profiles, 2011). I believe, I am capable of handling all these responsibilities with the virtues of my prior experiences with employees and the customers (human), my professional attitude will contribute in it, effectively. I am good in dealing with people. I believe in hard work and thus, a considerable level of self confidence can be observed in me. I am a quick leaner and believe in team work. I have worked as a part in the team of 15 people and have always known that there is not any ‘I’ in a team. One of my biggest strengths is that I logically rationalise any problem coming across, and try to identify its root causes so that the problem can be permanently eliminated. For instance, once it so happened that our team was facing a problem of miscommunication and the data were not available in that immediate moment which was disturbing the work schedule as well as the ambience. I used my strategic thinking and resolved the problem. The problem was that many people were handling the data at the same time so the storage methods of data became over-used and gave rise to unavailability or lack of data availability on time. I came up with an idea of making one person authority for the purpose so that there would be no further confusion and the required data could be accessed in a more systematic and time-efficient manner. I too have certain weaknesses in my professional skill. For instance, according to my character, I am detail oriented and expect others to be the same which I believe to annoy someone in the process in many occurrences. To be mentioned, I cannot tolerate anyone ignoring even a slightest fact to achieve perfection. I believe in result and to obtain it, I work quite hard and the same is expected from the team by me that can raise complexities. Reflection of the Skill Development My recent job involves with dealing with the patients’ telephone enquiries along with ordering the repeat prescriptions for the individual patients. The duties of the job that I was involved with, included receiving the new arrived patients and booking appointment for them. Receiving and sending of the posts were also included in my duty. My job responsibilities also included scanning. I must say my previous job has left me with some good experiences. These are the job which should be credited for my good communication and conveying skills. My previous job provided me with an opportunity of dealing with various different people who also helped me being so calm and understanding. To be more precise, once I dealt with various people with very different characteristics, some were polite and while some were not. Even though, I was successful in handling every patient calmly. This also contributed in enhancing my patience as this made me understand the human psychology and helped me to grow higher level of tolerance. I must be thankful to my prior employers, as the experiences gained from jobs have helped me to be what I am today. From my previous work experiences I have learnt to be more explicit, tolerant and above all, I now understand how to deal with different situations monitoring the people’s behaviour. Moreover, as I have worked in the medical field, it has helped me in gaining medical knowledge such as first aids. After all these several years’ involvement in this particular field, I have been able to gain the knowledge of handling emergency cases too. The calculation of time in the required time frame has been one of my major attentions in dealing with emergency cases which have made me capable of maintaining the time adequately. Recently, there have been three major experiences in my life which has helped me in gaining with certain experiences. While pursuing my ‘Business Studies and Management with HR’, my professor had allocated me with an assignment which was to be done in a team. I was made the representative (leader) of the group. This also helped me to understand the meaning of team work though this was not my first experience of working in a team. But, this was the first time I was working as the leader. It is worth mentioning here that this assignment helped me to recognise my leadership skills and moreover also contributed in developing them. We were altogether 10 in numbers and my two team members were not comfortable with each other. This was one of the most significant issues I had to face then. As I was the leader of the team, I was entitled with the responsibility of resolving any dispute which may arise and in the course of time it did. Once, due to certain miscommunication, there was conflict between those two team members and hence I was the one to deal with the matter. Here, I needed to show my rational thinking and in an attempt I filtered the root of the cause of the problem which was founded to the arousal of a miscommunication. I took a further step and explained the actual fact to them. The members understood their mistakes and acted more cooperative to each other. This helped me to enhance my problem solving behaviour along with my attitude of rationalising the elements. In the very event of the team assignment as a leader I was responsible to handle and provide with the entire requirement of the team members. In the process I even lost my temper on my members as I was highly nagged by them. Even after trying to meet their all requirements, they always had complaints. Gradually, I developed the attitude of listening to the people and put my level best to meet those. If could not, I always had a logical and rational reason for not being able to fulfil the demand. This was further assisted by my experiences which I drew from my prior works. My third experience, which I would like to mention relates to my confrontation with my roommate in the hostel room. Here, I need to state that I was not doing well with my roommate. Initially, I thought that she is not a very friendly and did not get along quite well. To add to this, she was very loud while talking in her cells which really disturbed me during my studies. We rarely talked and hardly had ever shared any feelings since prior this experience. Recently, unable to resist any more, I confronted her. We had some arguments and after a while, we came to a conclusion that there was a communication gap existing between us. She thought I am snob and so did I. The problem has resolved and now I am proud to say that I have gained another friend in my life. From the above mentioned experiences, I have been able to achieve various skills. For instance, from my assignment scenery, I was able to obtain the skills of rationalising and logical thinking that further will contribute in my career as an HRM. A HR manager needs to think rationally irrespective of any inclination. My second experience helped to gain patience and attain better communication skills. This also helped to enhance my listening skills which would certainly be quite beneficial in my future as a HRM is not only entitled to talk to its personnel but also needs to listen to them. This is also another means of communication and is counted among the job responsibilities of the HRM. My confrontation with my roommate made me realise that communication gap can prove to be major drawback in personal life as well in an organisational work culture. If I went on avoiding her rather that confronting, then I would not have been able to resolve my dispute and also would have been deprived of such a good friend. These gained experiences can help me to build up a better career prospective as an HR representative in my future. Career Management Action Plan In the upcoming year, I have set the three objectives that are to be achieved by me. I have prepared certain plans with an intention to obtain the prescribed skills. My first objective is to learn new languages. The reason behind learning quite a few languages are that the HR needs to be accepted by the employees whole heartedly as he or she is the one who is capable of making various decisions regarding the employee improvements in the organisation. As HR is very much responsible for the communication purposes, learning the languages can prove to be very effective measure. Along with this, my second objective is to learn new computerised processes of payrolls and other activities. This will help me to obtain multi-tasking ability. Adhering to the SMART principles, I will join in an institute which would assist me to gain such skills. Firstly, I intend to join a computer institute for a course of 6 months. After the completion of the course, I will be able to learn a few techniques involved with HR procedures. This is quite achievable as I will be provided with well skilled teacher to make me learn the new procedures. This will not be much difficult for me too, as I will have already gained sufficient academic knowledge regarding the HR requirements. After my completion of this objective, I will opt for my second objective of learning new languages, which will further contribute in enhancing my communication skills. Due to globalisation, the large organisations and the small business firms are seen to adopt the methods of diversification with respect to their operations and employees. Various employees from different regions are being welcomed by the organisations. Human Resource is generally related with communicating with employees and acts as a bridge between higher authority and employees. In addition, he or she (the HR manager) must interact with the employees with an intention to understand their problems, if any. One feels much comfortable with the person if he can interact with her or him in their native languages. Learning different languages can prove to be effective in the process of understanding the employees and handling complaints or grievances from them. My full involvement will be towards obtaining the guidance of a good mentor and it will be my strategy while attaining this objective. The remaining 6 months, I will completely devote in learning new languages. After the completion of each class, I will emphasise in my progress and use the new terms learnt in the languages in the daily life more frequently. With due inclination and determination, these objectives are quite achievable. The CV Miss Latifah Lawal 18 Broomfield house Congreve Street London SE17 1SY Mobile:07984-798-893 latifah.lawal@yahoo.co.uk Objectives and Vision With more than 4 years of experiences in medical administrative field and now with requisite education, I am planning to shift to the domain of human resource management. I am really interested in developing a career in administrative or human resource management and I am confident that I will turn out to be a valuable asset to attain the organisational objectives. Hard work, determination and enthusiasm are few of the keys facets of my personal traits. I am comfortable in working both on own initiatives as well as upon group or team efforts. Education University of East London (Sept 2009 – May 2012) Business Studies and Management with HR John Ruskin College (Sept 2003 – Jul 2005) Business Studies and Secretarial diploma Aylwin Girl’s School (Sept 1998 – Jul 2003) 7 Passes at GCSE Including English and Maths Employment History Nov 2009 to Feb 2010 Beacon Medical Centre As a Medical Receptionist Dealing with patient’s telephone enquiries and ordering repeat prescriptions for patients My duties included noting down the arrivals of patients, booking appointments for patient Sending and receiving mails Scanning Jan 2009 to Oct 2009 Lifeline Personnel As a Medical Secretarial Meeting and greeting Patients Dealing with all Patients enquiries over the telephone and in Person Booking and Arriving Patients Appointment Scanning patient’s information in their records July 2008 to Nov 2008 St Luke’s Practice As a Medical Receptionist Covering the reception area Dealing with all patients’ enquiries in person and over the telephone Sending appointment intimation letters to patients Receiving posts and sending mails out Dealing with all invoices going out of the practice Audio typing June 2007 – May 2008 T P P Medical As a Receptionist Switchboard/ Front of house and general office duties My duties included: Noting arrival of patients, booking appointments for patient Dealing with patient’s telephone enquiries and ordering repeat prescriptions for patients Registering new patients on to the system and also supporting Consultation Dec 2005 – June 2007 Bradley and Co. As a Personal Assistant Answering phone and diary update Photocopy invoices and dealing with customers’ car insurance Giving price estimate to clients, Meeting and greeting clients Record incoming and outgoing post, organizing team meetings, organizing the manager’s daily activities e.g. meetings and conferences Dealing with incoming mail JUNE 2003 – NOV 2005 King’s College Hospital As a Receptionist Dealing with incoming calls at the urology department Sending letters out to patients regarding their next appointments and for test results Dealing with general correspondences and audio typing Filing data inputting, collating and distribution of documents JUNE 2001 – DEC 2002 Fisher Meredith Solicitors As a Switchboard Operator Responsible for all aspects of office duties Dealing with incoming and outgoing posts and mails Typing of correspondence and reports, arranging meetings, copying work orders and reception covers Other Professional Qualifications MS Office including Excel, Word, Access, PowerPoint and Publisher STRENGTHS Team Player Reliable Trustworthy Enthusiastic WEAKNESSES Losing of Temper at times Being Perfectionist Often HOBBIES Reading autobiographies of inspirational persons from various fields of life DECLARATION I hereby declare that all the above mentioned facts are true and fair according to the best of my belief and intention. I understand that any false information will nullify my candidature in your organisation of repute. Dated: (Latifah Lawal) References Pearson Education, 2011. Personal Development Portfolio. Keeping a Portfolio of Skills. [Online] Available At: http://wps.pearsoned.co.uk/ema_uk_pp_studyskills/128/33013/8451576.cw/index.html [Accessed December 05, 2011]. Job Profiles, 2011. Human Resources Manager. Jobs, Careers and College Information. [Online] Available at: http://www.jobprofiles.org/bushrmanager.htm [Accessed December 05, 2011]. Read More