Career Management in Business - Essay Example

 Career Management in Business SECTION 1: CAREER ASPIRATIONS "This section asks you to outline your current career aspirations. You should identify your chosen occupation and job role within that. You may choose to differentiate between short, medium and long-term aspirations." "You should also identify the types of skills/competencies that are required to be successful in this role (this must be supported by relevant sources and references), and your current strengths and weaknesses in relation to these skills/competencies. Please identify ONE strength and ONE weakness only, and provide detailed supporting evidence." 1.1 Career aspirations  1.2 Skills required/demanded in your chosen occupation/role 1.3a ONE Strength (with examples) 1.3b ONE Weakness (with examples)  SECTION 2: REFLECTION ON YOUR SKILLS DEVELOPMENT “This section asks you to reflect on THREE significant experiences/incidents where you have learned a new, or developed an existing, skill or competence. These experiences/incidents could be based in any relevant context (e.g. work, university, home, social clubs etc.) but must refer to skills that you believe will be important in your future employment and career.” Experience 1: Describe the experience I was once interviewing a possible candidate for a position with the company and when I asked her why she wanted to change her work situation she informed me that it was her family situation which was forcing her to do so. I was shocked to hear it and when I asked for an explanation she told me how her father had died recently and she had to work to make ends meet rather than go to college. I was quite taken by the situation and decided to give her the job even though she scored very poorly on the interview and the skills evaluations text. In due course, she turned out to be completely incompetent on the job and I had to let her go after a few months of trying to deal with her. What did you learn? What I learned from this experience is that business decisions must not be made with emotional viewpoints and rational evaluations need to be made in order to get to the right decision. Simply hiring someone because they need the job could be a disservice to both them and the company because they would hurt the company and even hurt their own future prospects if they are not with the company for a significant period of time. This realization jumped at me as it was fully explained by Welch (2005). How have/will you use this new skill to aid the achievement of your career aspirations? The skill that I developed was the skill of looking at a situation with rationality and it can certainly be applied to the development of my career. I can be rational about my objectives and about my aims with regard to where I want to be in a few years time and what I need to do in order to get there. For example, it might be possible for me to aim to be the CEO of a company like GE but it would be very irrational to say that I will fulfill this aim within the next five years or less. Experience 2: Describe the experience I was working for a supervisor who was rather harsh on all of her employees and it became difficult for us to deal with her (often unusual) demands. There were grumblings in the office but no one seemed to be willing to talk to her about the situation and it became a very toxic environment to deal with. Over time, individuals started talking about leaving the company and two people put in their notices to the effect that they were leaving because of their friction with the supervisor. The company executive noted the situation and called a few people from our department regarding the situation. My supervisor knew that this would happen and she had told all of us to not say anything which might embarrass her. I had to pick between being ethical and telling the truth or putting her job at risk. I felt that I had to do the right thing and I told the executives honestly the real situation in the department. As a result, our supervisor was transferred to another section of the company and we got a new supervisor. What did you learn? I learned that honesty is the best policy and it would not be ethical to help those who are our friends if it comes at the expense of others. How have/will you use this new skill to aid the achievement of your career aspirations? Since I plan to be a manager, being an ethical manager is certainly something which is important to both those who hire me and for those who work with me on the team. In these terms, any improvements or positive development of my ethics will help both the company and the people that I would be working within the future. Of course, being ethical would also help my career prospects if that is one of the things I become known for in my particular industry. Experience 3: Describe the experience In the course of my studies in management science, I have come across many theorists and their ideas which present the idea of management as one thing or the other. There are often opposing ideas about how people need to be dealt with and there are even conflicting approaches to how certain situations within an organization need to be handled. This is certainly interesting for someone like me who likes to see things from different viewpoints and then evaluate the best possible application for the theories that I have learned. What did you learn? I learned that there is never one ‘best' solution or answer for any situation or any case which involves the human element. Several different approaches can be taken to solve one problem and it remains up to the managers of a company to come up with that solution. They have to apply their minds and they have to apply what they know about management in order to create these solutions and if the solutions they create are wrong then they have to live with the consequences. How have/will you use this new skill to aid the achievement of your career aspirations? I plan to use this realization by making careful decisions when I pick the companies I wish to work for or even the courses that I decided to take in the future since they may push my career in one direction or another. I also realize that while decisions have to be made carefully, it is important not to be paralyzed with indecision which can lead a person to confusion and ill-formed opinions about a course of action. At the same time, I also realize that the decisions I make will be my own and I have take responsibility if the decision is not sound. SECTION 3: CAREER MANAGEMENT ACTION PLAN “The following section asks you to set yourself THREE key objectives related to your career development for the next twelve (12) months. Each objective should be SMART, i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-framed.” "For each objective, you should outline specific actions that you will have to undertake if you are to achieve each objective. You must also set a specific and detailed timeframe for achieving each objective." Objective 1: State the objective. I plan to read at least six books related to the general topics of management and productivity that have been written by experts in the field that have had experience in managing firms on their own. I am quite in agreement with Baruch (2004) who considers education and continual development to be very important for a career. I personally believe that continued education is a very important part of being a manager and some of the best guidance and educational information comes from those who have worked as management consultants and product experts for various businesses. Their ideas have helped in turning around companies from being loss-making enterprises into profitable giants and therefore, it is important to understand what they try to tell us and it is important to know how their principles can be applied to other companies. Outline of specific actions associated with the achievement of the above objective. The books I plan to read are: Never Check E-Mail In the Morning: And Other Unexpected Strategies for Making Your Work Life Work by Julie Morgenstern Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't by Jim Collins First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman The time frame for achievement of the above objective. My timeframe for achieving this objective is one year which gives me two months per book which I feel is ample time even though I have several other responsibilities that I have to fulfill along with my objective of finishing these books. I am allocating ample time because I feel that I have to read and digest these books rather than simply read them and then forget what I have read within a year or two. Objective 2: State the objective. Analyse the present job market and point out seven different companies which I could apply to for a position within their management team. While there may be dozens of companies that I could apply to I need to focus on the right companies which meet the career objectives that I have in mind. Outline of specific actions associated with the achievement of the above objective. To meet this objective, I need to be sure of what the job outlook is for employees such as me, and how I can improve the positioning of my resume compared to others. Secondly, I need to know as much as I can about my top seven companies in terms of their processes, current projects, future development prospects as well as the work environment within the company. Perhaps the easiest source for such information would be to get an interview with an individual working at the company but since that may be difficult, I might have to rely on press releases and other news sources about the organization. At the same time, I realize that I must not be too focused on the seven companies that I have selected since it is possible that I find other organizations which are equally, if not better suited for my needs and this would mean that I would have to adjust my ideas on the fly. I do not think that this would show disloyalty since unless I am working for a company I remain an outsider for them looking for the best possible deal both in terms of compensation as well as future career prospects which remain very important considerations for a lifetime of management. The time frame for achievement of the above objective. I give myself three months to complete the research and the application process although it is likely that the companies I would really want to work for may not have an opening for them. In that scenario, I would look for both open positions as well as the companies I select in order to ensure that I am working while I continue to develop my career. However, the time I should take to find and mark the company or the position I wish to work at should not take me more than three months by any stretch and I expected that I would be able to start working with the company before the three months have passed. Objective 3: State the objective. I plan to attend at least 4 management related seminars and workshops in the coming year which take place in and around the area that I live in. I believe that attending such seminars has two important benefits for individuals like me. First, such activities are excellent learning opportunities where the latest approaches to handling the hottest management topics are discussed by experts coming from academia as well the business world. By listening to their viewpoints, we can get a full understanding of the issue as well as learn the real world methods which can be used to deal with the topic under discussion. The second objective of such activities is networking and interacting with other managers as well as the people who could make a hiring decision with regard to my application to their company. As per the information was given by Jackson (2000), networking can be a very important tool for career progression or even for getting a good job. While I understand that it is a long shot, the networking which comes from being at the same seminar and talking to people who are currently working in management positions can open up doors of opportunity that may not be fully exploited by other applicants. Outline of specific actions associated with the achievement of the above objective. To complete this objective I need to remain in touch with what is going around the area with regard to management seminars and educational talks given by other professionals. I would also need to prepare myself for the issue before I walk into such a seminar, therefore, some background reading about the issues being discussed or the speakers who are present at the seminar would become necessary. Of course, certain seminars and workshops may demand an investment of time and money but it is also possible to find seminars which are conducted free of cost. However, I feel that the learning and the career development which comes from a seminar would be far more important than the small investment which is required to attend the seminar. More importantly, it is also likely that the person I am working for can be persuaded to let me attend the workshop at the company's expense. This would be very possible if my attendance helps the development of the company and I can use the information I gather from the seminar to get more clients for the organization or to understand how the competition handles certain processes on their own. In essence, if I attend the workshops on my own I would use them to benefit my own career opportunities, personal development, and learning but if I work for a company and the same seminar is attended with the assistance of the company then the learning and the experience gained would be used both for the benefit of the company and my personal growth. The time frame for achievement of the above objective. I feel that I should be able to attend four seminars within the year but a large part of that depends on four interesting and useful seminars taking place within my locality in the given time frame. If they do, I see no reason why I should not be able to attend them. In fact, if there are more interesting seminars or workshops that come up within the year, it is also possible that I attend more than four within the same calendar year. References Arnold, J. 1997, Managing Careers into the 21st Century, Paul Chapman Publishing. Arnold, J. 2005, Work Psychology: Understanding Human Behaviour in the Workplace, FT Prentice Hall. Baruch, Y. 2004, Managing Careers: Theory and Practice, Pearson Education. Jackson, T. 2000, Career Development, CIPD. Welch, J. 2005, Winning, HarperCollins Read More