The Propensity for the Success of a Career in Finance as a Business Leader - Statistics Project Example

Reflective Review of My Personal Development Plan Introduction This personal development plan is meant to be an introspective project and an evaluation of my skills and potentials for a future career in business. As a young man, I have great aspirations for myself and I am aware that in order to be deserving of a gainful position in the corporate world, I have to be equipped with the right skills and knowledge. I am hopeful that a prospective employer will come to read this PDP of mine and consider me as a viable candidate for his company. My Professional Journey Growing up, I was exposed to business early on. I helped out in our family business by proposing and developing ideas in solving some business problems. Being a teenager, the ideas I came up with were known to be ahead of its time considering my age, but they were able to bear fruit in our business. I was fortunate to have parents who encouraged me and accepted my ideas, giving me enough confidence to think up of more. Not only did my proposed strategies work in our Real Estate business, but they also proved to be financially productive. My knack for business pushed me to pursue a degree in Global Financial Management at Regent’s Business School in London. I grew up in France and finished from a private high school there, Baccalauréat Scientific. Secondary school solidified my vision to join the world of Finance as an adult. I excelled in Math and enjoyed solving the exercises we were given in economics and statistics. My early professional experience includes short-term internships (3 months). I worked at the PSA Peugeot Citroen. As an assistant controller there, I audited the performance of the company employees. I was also able to get an internship in a French bank named Banque Populaire. My short stint as a banker’s assistant provided me with opportunities to see how things work in banks. My main tasks were filing, presenting and creating client data. Although I have limited work experiences, I was able to acquire several skills by maximizing my time in each work setting. I learned organization, time management, interpersonal skills and work ethics. I know that these skills will benefit me in my future career as well as the company I will be part of someday. My School’s Influence on My Professional Training The courses I have taken so far at Regent’s Business School have been amazing for me. As a freshman in this college, I am overwhelmed with the sophistication of the subjects and know that I should take full advantage of what I am learning. We are usually given a lot of work to do, both individual and group tasks. My passion for my studies is so great that sometimes, I am annoyed with my classmates who are so lackadaisical. One experience that illustrates this was a time when we were assigned a group task. My group mates did not seem so interested in working on it although I kept trying to initiate meetings with them. They felt we had all the time in the world and that it was not worth fussing about this early. Not wanting to waste any time nor my own motivation, I took home the work, organized it and delegated work to each member and the next day, I handed them their assigned tasks, organized into bullet points to help them focus better. My group mates were awed at the work I did and got motivated with what I have done. They saw how driven I was and wanted to emulate the energy and effort that I put into the work. A week later, after close and productive collaboration, we turned in the fruit of our hard work as a group. I knew my own initiative had much to do with how the group took the task more seriously. I was proud of myself for that because I believe it reflected my own initiative, hard work, creativity and leadership skills, which are traits that companies prioritize when looking for high quality people to hire. I know I am a work in progress, but am confident that I have begun the work in flying colours. Learning from Internship As I have mentioned earlier, I derived much learning from my internship experiences. At that time, I was just in my late teens but felt so grown-up in the positions I held. As an assistant, I was given a good view of how things are done in work settings and watch my mentors implement their duties and responsibilities. I also feel honoured that I was trusted by the people I worked with even if I was much younger than they are. One time, a teller was fretting over her balance at the end of the day. She kept counting the money and found out she was short of a hundred pounds! She tried her best to re-trace all the clients whom she transacted with. She spoke out loud enough that I can hear her from a where I was sitting. I was not even aware that my mind was keeping track of the numbers she was saying. She was getting so confused with all the numbers and was at the verge of tears. I approached her and listed down all the transactions she said she made and saw two fifty pound withdrawals from separate clients that she forgot to compute in her balance. Those two transactions were the missing links in her balance sheet. When she realized that, she gave me a big hug out of gratitude and I felt so good at being able to help out. Another teller commended me for my knack for details and said I’d make a great finance analyst someday. Another employee was amazed at how good I was able to keep track of numbers because it was a long day and they had so many clients that day! This incident made me realize that my natural talent for math is an asset that I need to cultivate seeing how it is so helpful to others. If the task of keeping track and analyzing transactions was so easy for me, which other people in practice find difficult, then how much more if I learn more advanced skills? I feel confident that I can also handle it and turn in high quality work to my future employers. My Employability Skills At this point in my life, I hold idealistic views on how I should be as a future businessman. I can both be proud of my present traits and at the same time, feel that they are still inadequate for me to reach my goals. I need to hone my strengths and turn my weaknesses into strengths themselves or at least make an effort to improve on them. With regards to the employability skills provided by the module, the following are my assessments and reflections on my own: Professional Attitudes Initiative: I have displayed initiative in the example I gave for the section on my school experiences. I took charge of the group without being asked and came up with an organized system so that the members are encouraged to start work on their own and then collaborate with each other to discuss their contributions to the group. While it is good that I have initiative, I need to be careful in making people too reliant on me. I need to also empower them to have initiative themselves and not always just pushing them to do their work. I have realized in my past school experiences that I have a strong tendency to do things my way so in order to avoid any conflicts from non-cooperative members, I would prefer to just do their part just so the work gets done according to my standards. I know that in the real world, this should not be the case. I would need to trust my colleagues to do their part so that they also have a contribution to the task assigned. It also fosters accountability which everyone should have. Ethical sensitivity: My parents have taught me good work ethics. My values have been shaped by two parents with strong integrity that I know what is right from wrong. I know that it is not right to cheat others in business no matter how mean they may seem to be. It is easy to be tempted to overprice especially if I know that customers are rich enough not to mind paying more, but I need to be fair and honest. However, in work settings, I would need to know the culture that prevails and apply ethical sensitivity. This would most apply to my co-workers. Globalization has brought together diverse people from various backgrounds and cultures. I have been exposed to a variety of cultures growing up in a multicultural society. I know that each person deserves respect and acceptance. I may have my biases, being human, but I need to be able to control these in order to work harmoniously with others. Professional behaviours Self-management: I am learning to be more organized and manage my time well. As a student, my schedule is filled with lectures to attend and participate in, projects to work on, papers to write, and so on. Not to mention maintaining my close relationship with my family, my social life with friends, and keeping my social networks growing. That is why I need to keep a balance between work and leisure. Sometimes, it is a challenge to be responsible because as a young man, enjoying life to the fullest is so tempting, but my responsibilities as a student and future professional and family man keeps me from over-indulging. Critical analysis: Being complemented as a good analyzer, and having the potential to be a great financial analyst someday has flattered me to no end. I know that critical analysis is one strength of mine, but I should not let it go to my head. I need to be humble enough to be open to more learning because the fast pace of life today brings with it so many changes. These may complicate what was traditionally known and critical analysis becomes more challenging. That is why I need to be kept updated about so many things and keep being curious and inquisitive and not to just take things as they are. For example when listening to the news, I need to train myself to seek all sides of the story before I accept or reject it as true. I know that this is how a professional businessman should think and decide. Professional skills Political sensitivity: My courses at school teach me about organizational culture and the common policies and practices implemented. However, I learned that there is a certain culture that prevails in each organization that may not be the same as the others. In each, there are politics involved, such as the way the vision, mission and philosophy of the organization are interpreted and played out. This is one thing I need to learn – to be sensitive to an organization’s own culture and adapt to it. I know in the future company I will work for, I have to share its vision, mission and goals and be one with their philosophy. I know that having opposing philosophies from them will just create conflicts and not amount to a productive and harmonious outcome. That is why I need to study the organizational cultures of prospective companies I want to work for in the future and see if it is aligned to my own. Problem solving: I know basic problem solving and have exhibited my skill in it from an early point in my life, but I am aware that I have a long way to go in terms of problem-solving on a bigger scale. Businesses are complicated and I need to learn every detail in every possible situation. I also know that no matter how much I will learn from my studies, actual practice is still different. When I am faced with the possibility of losses or stand to gain a huge amount of profit in exchange for a value I hold dear, I need to be able guided in solving the problem and coming up with the most appropriate decision for the greater good. However, I need to develop my own philosophy and be firm in standing my ground when my values are being tested. I need to make sure to keep my integrity and professionalism at all times and not compromise or settle for anything less. In desperate situations, I know that I will choose the lesser evil and then live with the consequences of my decisions. I should be ready to take credit for any success or failure that may come out of the decisions I make. Negotiating: I know I am good at talking to people and being able to explain things for them to understand my views. I myself am open to other people’s ideas. But when I am really bent on selling my own ideas, it becomes difficult for me to listen to others’ because I have set my mind to it. The same may be true with other people I may encounter in business. This is where negotiation skills come in. I believe that negotiation involves creating a window of chance that one’s idea may be considered as well as giving the other party a chance to present his side and seek possibilities of both ideas working together so that the outcome is mutually acceptable. I need to develop more confidence in this skill. This would entail being able to “read” people’s motivations and interests in order to know how the things that would make them agree to my negotiations. I also need to learn more communication skills to get my points across successfully. Knowing that I will be dealing with people from various nationalities in the future, I take it upon myself to be adept in several languages. Currently, the languages I am fluent in are French, Hebrew and English. I have advanced knowledge of Spanish and am at the beginner’s level in the Arabic language. Should opportunities present themselves, I would like to learn more languages to be able to address a wider market of clients someday. Conclusion Right now, I admit that I am so far off from meeting my professional goal to take part in a career in Finance and be a business leader in my own right. I am just beginning in my journey and have a long way to go. However, I am armed with the propensity for success, having the traits of passion for learning, initiative, creativity, industriousness, dedication and ambition. My skills in problem-solving, organization and communication ensure that I have what it takes to achieve my goals. Meanwhile, I need to keep learning the craft by being a good student and fulfilling all my duties and responsibilities. Aside from learning academically, I also need to open myself to learning from other sources such as keeping myself updated with business news from media, the internet and books by prominent business people. I will attend seminars, conferences or informal talks with more experienced people in business as part of creating my business network. Most important of all is to keep my zest for learning and living burning within me. Read More