A career in sales and marketing requires a distinctive set of skills and responsibilities. Some of the needed skills are acquired through classroom studies while others are natural. To understand my strengths and weaknesses, a series of tests were carried out. These tests were meant to assess the extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness-to-stability. The other test was intended to assess the emotional intelligence. In this paper, I will evaluate the results and discuss methods that will be used to ensure that my career aspiration is achieved.
Careers Aspiration
I am a junior student, pursuing business marketing and entrepreneurial studies majors at Paul College of Business and Economics. I intend to finish my first degree and secure an employment opportunity in the sales and marketing department. The expectation is that the employer will be a reputable organization that respects the elements of the team and with a management culture that foster sharing and interactions amongst various teams. I also aspire to venture into the financial market. My overall plan was to work for five years after my degree and continue studying to improve my skills. I will focus on market analysis, budgeting, forecast sales, promotional campaigns, and target audiences. Upon acquiring the target skills and knowledge, I will then open my own business. I will utilize the already acquired skills to grow it to the next level.
Team Dynamics
There are specific traits that make particular teams functional and others non-functional. Team discipline is an important element of the team constituents and determines the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of a team. Teams are different from working groups as they work together. No individual member is accountable alone. The total output in a team is greater than sum of individual output, as the cooperation and sharing results in a higher level efficiency. Members of a team hold themselves mutually accountable and are committed to a particular goal. Teams shape the direction and then create a momentum towards that direction. Teams avoid leadership structures that advocate for an all powerful leader, but instead foster a shared leadership responsibility. Effective teams are of between 2 to 25 members. Each individual is shaped by his/her past experiences and brings in unique contribution to the team.
Personnel working in the sales and marketing department are expected to be talkative and sociable. This is so as these are the skills that one requires to create and maintain relationships and as well convince the client to purchase their products. Thus, besides the skills that are taught in the classroom, some natural skills distinguish a good sales person from the rest. To assess these skills, some questionnaires were administered to the students.
Analysis of the Strengths and Weaknesses
Some of my main strengths are the ability to appeal to the logics and emotions in my presentations. I possess a high emotional intelligence and thus can cultivate my relationships and thus can relate well with my clients. Then, using the power of logics, I can convince someone and make them see the details from my angle. This way, I can convince my customers that a particular product is superior and worth a trial. My main weakness is the performance while under pressure. I tense when under a lot of pressure and thus am not able to perform optimally. In the working environment, in most cases, employees are under intense pressure to meet the deadlines, schedules, budgets and as well the personal goals. I should be able to rise to the occasions and respond to pressure.
I scored low on conscientiousness. As much as am focused and dedicated towards achieving my goals, I find myself at times pursuing many goals at once and thus ending up being disoriented. One notable fact is that I intend to gain the work experience at the same time continue with my education. I want to manage to get promoted to the management level within three years and at the same time; I want to have finalized my MBA. Sales and marketing is a demanding career, and there are competitions and in most cases, the management positions are based on merits. Thus, the best performing team member is the one that gets promoted. Performance is measured in terms of the sales volumes, new clients, customer satisfaction, and timely delivery of the results amongst other parameters. Thus, for me to be an effective team player, there are some areas that I need to improve on.
Action Plan
In order for one to manage to deliver exemplary results in all of the above parameters, it requires hard work and dedications. Thus, for one to achieve that, he needs to work very hard on the job. Working and studying will reduce the momentum and thus the goals of achieving a managerial position within the first three years of employment may not be realistic. There are several steps that I can employ in order to ensure that the set goals and objectives are achieved. Instead of a full-time position, I can opt for a part-time position that will allow me to dedicate my efforts towards completion of the education and at the same time allow me to optimize my full potential at work.
I did not have a perfect score in all the parameters, as noted in the studies, most of the traits such as emotional intelligence, conscientiousness, and openness to experience can be improved. Thus, I will embark on a program that will be aimed at perfecting those traits towards my career objectives. A periodic review by the instructors will enable me to monitor my progress. The overall goal is to align my personal trait as per the career requirements and thus being ready to propel and rise through the corporate ladder as quick as possible. I will leverage on the acquired skills and as well on my personal strengths to propel my career growth to the highest level and become an important member of the team.
As noted in the assessment, one of my strengths is the ability to solve problems. I am assertive and able to make a prompt decision without hesitation. I can influence others on logic and as well on emotions. Thus, depending on the organization that I will be working on, I will employ these tactics to propel my rise the corporate ladder. Am also able to build good working relationships, and thus, I will be able to relate well with both the colleagues and with the customers and work as an efficient and a valuable team member.
A career in sales and marketing requires a combination of both the classroom skills and other natural skills and character traits. The curriculum will cover most of the classroom requirement well. However, there are other sets of skills that are as important as the classroom skills, but they are not included in the curriculum. Depending on the future aspirations, there is a needed to align these skills to an individual career path. Thus, an individual assessment was carried out to evaluate strengths and weaknesses. I will strive through a step by step effort to correct the shortcomings while optimizing on my strengths to ensure that I achieve my career objectives.
