Personal development planning Sample Assignment

My four strongest soft skills are leadership, responsibility, decision-making capability and effective communication skills. These strengths are assessed from the real life problems and feedbacks I have encountered through the places I have worked in and peer reviews. I have witnessed that through the classroom teamwork’s, I have to play the role of a leader to maintain the collaborative essence in the team and manage the interpersonal conflicts through the effective communication skills. These skills are also invaded in the soft skills that have helped me in accomplishing my functional activities and other practices to lead my team in the effective manner. As I have mentioned that leading a team also introduces responsibility as leading team requires effective understanding, collaborative work culture, communication and critical thinking to make justified decisions so that the purpose of the team can be accomplished in the prominent manner (Cukier, et al. 2015). Apart from that, the strengths are assessed through the peer reviews and a classroom practice as these skills are effective in the initial stage as well as it supports the increase of professional characteristics in the career development.

Identification of six skills that would require further development:

I have evident that there are various skills present that need further improvement to support my existing skills for further development of my career goals. The six identified skills that needs effective further concentration involves time management, adapting the change, poor communication skills, confidence, competitiveness and effective talent management. These skills are crucial as this support the career development in the profound manner. Apart from that, I have seen that lack of communication skills has made me experiencing various challenges that can cause hindrance in my further career. I have seen that due to lack of time management, I am bad in timing and coordinating my works and other deliverables. Additionally, my personal life also suffers for the unpunctual behaviour. I am inflexible in adapting change and growth with the changes, as I am unwillingness towards accepting the change. As I have previously mentioned, I have moderate communication skills when it comes to interpersonal acumen. In addition to that, unwillingness makes it more difficult to convey the appropriate feelings and gestures in the communication purpose. I think these need effective care and development to support my career planning in the further professional life.

Threats and opportunities that may affect the development plan:

Beside the aforementioned weaknesses and areas of improvements there are various threats present that can pose challenge and contradiction to my career planning in the effective manner. During my work process, I have encountered that my office mates are more confident when they are supposed to present their feelings or activities. However, I lack in self-confidence majorly as I hesitate and remain unwilling towards the procedure and this can pose significant threat to my career development. Apart from that due to the lack of communication skills, I am unable to attain the competitive advantage within the workplace. It has been opined that in order to attain effective competitive advantage and build good workplace relationship it is important to communicate as it resolves interpersonal challenges and addresses the communication gaps in the profound manner. I have minimum experience if compared to my colleagues. Thus, these places are the potential threats that can pose threat tin y career. However, these places can be taken into the account of opportunities in the positive note so that enhancements in my ability can be done as required. Apart from that, the drawbacks such as time management, continuation of the diploma Assignment, enhancing personal experience and improve competition are the opportunities that can help me in the further career planning.

Discuss the experience to improve the soft skills:

In accordance with my personal skill analysis, I can reflect the areas that would be prioritise for further improvement process. In the foremost step, I would complete my studies that relates to the diploma Assignment so that the degree can complement my resume in the further professional organisation. Further, the assessed skill needs more improvement to gain competitive advantage and gain confidence. In order to gain self-confidence social interactions and exams related to competitive lectures can help me in the profound manner. Communication skills, time management and other areas can be improved if I make a timetable schedule and work accordingly (Adnan, et al. 2017). Learning through documentation and journal helps in attaining the improvement and progress done so far. Thus, self-learning and power learning can help in understanding the progress and places that need more improvisation to support the enhancement profoundly and career planning can be done successfully. I can state that, communicating with people using the various means and codes will help me in most of the areas such as confidence, competitive advantage and so on.

Development plan

A plan for the soft skills that needs to be developed

Table 1: Plan for the identified soft skill development

(Source: Self-created)

As has been documented in the aforementioned table, my plan is shortly conveyed which entails the paths I can improve the existing skills and gain the six skills highlighted in the table. I am poor in time management, communicating with group of people, confidence, competing features and retaining talents. Additionally, the places of improvement requires effective self-assessment as this helps in widening the knowledge that relates to career development and attaining further career opportunities. In the foremost step, I would incorporate continues improvement prospect so that the existing soft skills can be improved rapidly and other drawbacks can gain efficiency with effective improvement approach. Apart from that, to gain time management skills, few steps required in the most crucial manner as those steps only can help me in gaining the efficacy in managing time and eliminate the drawback from my career plan. The steps will mainly involve, prioritising the objectives so that the essential aims can be met in the initial stage. Apart from that setting some boundaries with effectively scheduled timetable so that the boundaries can be achieved in the profound manner (Hurrell, 2016). Additionally, to attain confidence it would be important to position better perspectives and create effective attitude to make the work ethics efficient can help in this aspect in the effective manner. To meet the confidence of other staffs and subordinate workers social interactions and developing effective emotional intelligence can help in this regards effectively. To adapt change I have to build emotive cognitive and listening skills can help as listening skills encompasses various attributes that supports various knowledge attainments in the profound manner. Thus, following these steps can help in attaining these six skills so that the further career planning can be complemented duly.

Role of classroom activities in developing the further improvement plan

It has been evident that classroom plays the most significant role in improving my plan as classroom makes the activities more formal and time is the most important aspect in maintaining the formal perspectives effectively. It has been evident that classroom allows the students to attain various secondary skills that are important and supports the professional skills so that the career planning can be done in the profound manner. Additionally, in classroom the vocational trainings and co curricular activities allow the students to improve the existing skills and eliminate the barriers that pose threat to the accomplishment of career objectives. Due to various team projects, collaborative works and field works the essence of togetherness developed amongst the individuals (Matteson, et al. 2016). Apart from that, this allows an individual to understand the importance of work ethics and professionalism to cope up with the working environment and meet the business standards in the profound manner. Apart from that, oral communication, written communication and critical thinking prospects experiences effective improvisation as well. Thus, the necessary skills I have to acquire can be attained with the classroom activities as all of the activities relate to effective career planning. Thus, I can state that classroom activities will further help me in attaining effective communication, work ethics, time management and other soft skills.

Challenges related to the development of the soft skills

To attain the aforementioned skills various contradictions can come across to my path of further career development planning. The first challenge that can be evident that is my unwillingness to cope up with the changes and adapt the changes. Second challenge can be the time constraints and impact of external factors in the career development. Thus, these challenges can be taken into account with various problem solving techniques such as progress learning and self-analysis techniques so that the origins of the challenges can be determined. Additionally, after the analysed challenges critical thinking and required changes need to be incorporated so that the challenges can be addressed (Jena and Satpathy, 2017). Additionally, addressing the challenges will further make me acquainted with the areas that pose threat to my career development plan and professional soft skills so that the further safeguarding of the issues and prevention can be done in the effective manner.

Role of soft skills in the career success

Role of soft skills in the career success

Hard skills of an individual are not hard to acquire and it could be easily acquire or taught over time, and hard skill are useless without soft skill (Cimatti, 2016). Thus, soft skill is very much important for an individual to develop, since it takes lots of effort and commitment for self development. Soft skills like negotiation, customer service, problem solving, ability to work under pressure and conflict resolution plays a crucial role in enhancing ability of an individual for personal development. On the same context, soft skill are essential part for attracting and finding new clients for an organization and it will also assist an individual to increase success rate of career development as well as social interaction in the society. It can be evidently stated that, soft skill will increase ability of an individual to have better communication ability with other people in the same workplace or society. Thus, with better communication and good verbal skill will assist an individual to communicate with new client and also for finding new client for an organization. Moreover, one way that will assist an individual to increase their soft skill like communication is by joining Toastmaster a national organisation that offers support of individual to increase their communication skills (Savitz-Romer et al. 2015).

Soft skill like team working is also essential along with communication and good verbal ability. A firm always wants that individual that will be working into the firm should be equipped with better teamwork skill and adaptability. Since, it has been found that things do not go according to plan and an individual should be having enough adaptability skill that will assist the person to deal with certain circumstances that may arise suddenly. This will further assist the person to enhance their ability to work better as a team with other people and deal with abrupt change in situation more efficiently. In addition to that, problem solving ability is another soft skill and ability of an individual that will assist the person to solve problem when something goes wrong in a firm or workplace. Moreover, problem solving ability will also assist an individual to solve conflict among employees and assist to boost with team working ability, since when more than one people work into an organisation there is a chance of conflict with them. Thus, with better conflict solution soft skill will assist the individual to resolve conflict among them and boost motivation.

Since it has been found from above that soft skills are very essential for an individual for an individual, thus I need to incorporate soft skill in to myself. It will assist me to increase my ability to have boost team working with my colleagues and employee of the firm. Moreover, it will also boost my ability to have resolve conflict among employee of the firm with better soft skill and it will assist me for my career development in future. Soft skill like adaptability will also assist me to develop my ability to deal sudden change in situation into a workplace and will help me find an alternative solution for the problem.

What role acquisition soft skills can play in your career development and career success?

It has been previously mentioned that soft skills are crucial in the career development and career success as the soft skills supports and contributes to the development of professional features along with the characteristics. Apart from that, to plan an effective career and future employment, soft skills are essential, as it is the main structure forum for developing the further hard or complex skills. It has been evident that hard skills can be measured and can be quantify however, the soft skills are not tangible and unable to quantify. Thus, its impact and importance can be signified through the variance. However, it is acknowledged that soft skills are the main determinants of the individual’s capability in delivering the functional activity and fulfilling the workplace prerequisites. In my career plan and success, these soft skills can help in dealing with the workplace responsibilities and coping up with the changing working environment along with the deliberate situations. It is aforementioned that organisational or workplace responsibilities comes with various pros and cons along with various challenging situation that requires the mentioned soft skills such as communication, leadership, time management, team management and confidence. In essence as I have applied for the post of administrative function leading, communication, time management, decision-making and other skills would be initially required as no job responsibility can be performed if lack of communication takes place in the workplace culture. Soft skills will allow me to adapt the change, as it will increase my credibility and adaptability in the consequent manner. Thus, my drawbacks can be addressed and i can overcome the threats in the effective manner to deal with my responsibilities.

Conclusion

In accordance with the paper, it has been evident that soft skills play effective part in the career development and in the career success as it is greatly been able to support and contribute to the planning procedure along with personal analysis. The paper has illustrated the acronyms of the SWOT analysis to assess my personal skills that relates to the soft skills in which I have evident that there are various aspects present that requires effective change and focus so that the opportunities of completing my diploma Assignment and gaining competitive advantage can be attained. Apart from that, the paper has analysed the importance of soft skills in associated with classroom practice incorporation, as the intangible skills are co efficiently related with the aforementioned aspects. Role of acquisition of soft skills have been addressed in the paper so that I can attain in depth knowledge in the importance of soft skills and further achieve career success with effective career planning.

Reference List

Adnan, Y.M., Daud, M.N., Alias, A. and Razali, M.N., 2017. Importance of soft skills for graduates in the real estate programmes in Malaysia. Journal of Surveying, Construction and Property, 3(2).

Cimatti, B., 2016. DEFINITION, DEVELOPMENT, ASSESSMENT OF SOFT SKILLS AND THEIR ROLE FOR THE QUALITY OF ORGANIZATIONS AND ENTERPRISES. International Journal for Quality Research, 10(1).

Cukier, W., Hodson, J. and Omar, A., 2015. “SOFT” SKILLS ARE HARD.

Deming, D.J., 2017. The value of soft skills in the labor market. NBER Reporter, (4), pp.7-11.

Hurrell, S.A., 2016. Rethinking the soft skills deficit blame game: Employers, skills withdrawal and the reporting of soft skills gaps. Human Relations, 69(3), pp.605-628.

Jena, A. and Satpathy, S.S., 2017. Importance of Soft Skills in Project Management. International Journal of Scientific Research and Management, 5(7), pp.6173-6180.

Matteson, M.L., Anderson, L. and Boyden, C., 2016. " Soft Skills": A Phrase in Search of Meaning. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 16(1), pp.71-88.

Savitz-Romer, M., Rowan-Kenyon, H.T. and Fancsali, C., 2015. Social, emotional, and affective skills for college and career success. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 47(5), pp.18-27