The selection of a lifetime career in line with my aspirations and talents has been nothing short of exhilarating. Though it has been challenging and at times disappointing, the results have been worth the effort. This course has influenced the decisions that I have been making regarding my future. After I am through with my course I can now confidently reflect on my performance and preparedness for a career in business. This reflective statement presents my career selection, application of knowledge, opportunity research, decision making, opportunity awareness and self awareness throughout my quest to forge a successful career out of the course I have studied.
In the selection of a career I have taken several tests to assess my strengths and suitability to certain careers. Tests are part of a self-awareness strategy that I carried out aiming to discover the natural talents that can lead me into selecting a career. These tests establish my competency levels in terms of my skills and interests. Personality tests in regard to my temperaments exemplify my personality in befitting certain careers (National Institute for Careers Education and Counseling, 2013). It was imperative that I concentrate on personality tests because I need to know how to market myself, act and interact with different people. I further believe that if am able to manage my personality then I shall be able to manage skill tests as well. Psychometric tests test my intelligence, logic, reasoning, numerical and verbal ability thereby aiding in the process of self awareness, application of knowledge, opportunity search, opportunity awareness, decision making and career selection.
The first that I did test was the Keirsey Temperament Sorter II which is basically a personality test (keirsey.com, 2013). Report of the test showed that my personality type is that of the Guardian Supervisor (ESTJ). This temperament shows that I have a natural talent in managing goods and services. Moreover, I have the ability to keep things running smoothly in my community, school, business and basically any other place where I can manage resources or people. I am sociable, responsible, and dependable. I highly respect the rule of law as well as customs and traditions. I also have as exemplified by my scheduling and organization the ability to supervise resources and groups of people. My sociability coupled with my ability to schedule and organize resources and personnel gives me good supervisory skills.
The other test that I carried out was the test to analyze my career interests. The purpose of this test was to help me identify my work-related interests. The test comprised of four 32 questions grouped into eight interest groups and with each question ranging from a minimum of 0 score to a maximum of 16. I scored 15 for scientist and 11 for information category. In social, management and literacy categories I scored 9 while I scored 8 in management and artistic (bbc.co.uk, 2013). My lowest score was 6 in questions relating to outdoor challenges. From this test it is apparent that my career related interests befit me for a career in a science and in particular information sciences. Since I am already in a business-oriented career I believe there are areas in business such as banking where my work-related interests in massive data and information can find extensive application (gradireland.com, 2013).
I also evaluated my team-working skills by responding to 28 questions structured into seven groups. The scores in this case ranged from 0-12. My fair scores were in the following areas; ideas person-10, leader-10, compromiser-9 and evaluator-8. I scored a bit lowly in being a recorder and encourager with a score of 4 (kent.ac.uk, 2013). From these results it is apparent that I can be a good leader and I can be useful to a team since I can give useful ideas. This affirms the results of a previous temperament test that showed that I can be guardian supervisor.
A mock interview that I recently held for a position in customer services provided me with a spectacular insight into my strengths while presenting me with a challenge on the areas that I should seek improvements. A summary of my performance showed that I was impressive in my presentation. I was smartly dressed and I maintained good eye contact. I also responded satisfactorily to the first question on what attracted me to the position for which I was interviewing. I was able to provide relevant examples of skills and experiences I had acquired in other positions.
The areas that I need to improve include timely submission of my documents. I also need to provide a covering letter which improves my chances of being invited to an interview. I struggled to respond to the question where I was asked to specify my specific skills such as organizational and communication skills. I performed below par on this question because I was not adequately prepared. I could have taken time to prepare by checking the job description and having ready examples to give to show my strengths and skills.
I see a Curriculum Vitae (CV) as the gate through which in can enter the interviewer’s mind and persuade him that I am the right person for a given job opportunity. As I scrutinized my CV, I discovered that I hadn’t been professional in organizing it accordingly by aligning it with the traits and strengths that I had discovered about myself from the self awareness strategies I had put in place.
During my first interview, I was unable to substantiate some claims in my curriculum vitae. I had stated that I had excellent time management skills but I was unable to back my assertions with a satisfactory answer. I was advised to remove the statement from my CV or prepare adequately on how to defend my claims. Based on my self-awareness discoveries I have excellent time management skills and all that I lacked at the moment were clear examples of instances where I managed time properly. I need to have examples ready of real life situations where I made contributions and especially positive contributions.
Decision making is an important step in one’s career life. In making my decision for a career, I took time to avoid hasty and regretful decisions. I made my decision after viewing the whole picture of what I plan to get into, guessing all the possible consequences and studying all the possible alternatives. The ability to make informed decisions is also an aspect of quality leadership.
Quality decision making prepares one to become aware of opportunities as I will be able to realize and accommodate the opportunities that aid in the achievement of the overall decision. Opportunity awareness is the exploration of the different paths and strategies that are open (or closed) to particular individuals for gaining entry into those opportunities. Based on an analysis of my personality, my interests and my skills I fit ideally in a conventional career. My temperament shows that I am conservative and I like to stick to rules and regulations. I like to follow orders and routines and therefore I would be suited for a career that focuses on accuracy and efficiency. I would prefer to know what is expected of me in a predictable manner. In this regard I would ideally fit in careers such as public service, the financial sector for instance accountancy, bookkeeping, banking, secretarial and inspection roles.
In the assessment of my character, I relied on personality tests because I have realized that I was not fully aware of how my personality would determine my career. While aptitude tests numerical, verbal and logical reasoning and are an important aspect in career selection, they are most applicable in cases where someone has already selected a career and they are most likely preparing for an interview. In other words, the tests are suited to test my potential to learn to do a new task instead of testing on my mastery of the skills I already have.
My career interests in science and information are strong and supportive of a career in a conventional field such as accountancy and banking, financial services, public service among other careers that require the adherence to protocol and that are conventional. The most appealing to me of these careers is banking. Based on the results of the personality tests, and specifically the personal interest I find that I am good in sciences and information. These two areas could enhance a career prospect in banking where I deal with loads of information, computations and a lot of analysis. I have made a decision to pursue banking as a career and in some time after securing employment I shall pursue further education in the same field in order to enhance my competency in the field. I do not see myself changing careers any time soon as I have taken slot of time and effort to select a career that finally fits into my passions. I can confidently declare that I plan to forge a profession out of my passion.
I believe I have the skills that employers are looking for. I have developed courage with time and I have also honed my communication skills. Throughout my job hunting period and also during my time in college, I have learnt to deal with diverse personalities and this has served to prepare me to work in a diverse setting. I also hold the academic qualifications to work in this particular field. My interests are my biggest assets in convincing potential employers that I am the right candidate for the job.
Searching through the US labor market, I find enormous but erratic prospects. The employment rates keep fluctuating and it is difficult to predict the chances of getting employed. For instance, in one week the job cuts in a given region dropped by 7000 and was adjusted to 340,000 in a week dropping for the seventh week running. Economists in the same week were projecting the unemployment numbers to rise to 355,000 (dw.de. 2013). In the same regard the high turnover of jibs especially in the banking sector means that opportunities also abound. It is therefore upon me to hone my skills and present myself as the best candidate for the job wherever a chance arises.
Having established baking as a career in line with my strengths, talents and skills I have been on the hunt for a job. I have used a variety of job hunting methods; some reactive and some proactive. Vishal, (2009) advises jobseekers to use proactive rather than reactive methods to search for jobs since the former has less competition. Among the reactive methods, I have been checking the local dailies for job advertisements and company websites. Needless to say, the column on “who’s hiring has been a favorite?” I have also employed several proactive methods such as asking fiends to notify me of when vacancies open up in their firms. I have also subscribed and updated my CV on several job placement sites such as placementusa.com, job.com and job-placement.net. I have also visited some banks and sought o have audience with the manager to ask for a job. Throughout my search for a job, I have obtained useful advice on best companies in my line work and the challenges to expect.
The achievement of a great career is reliant on the personal effort on the part of the professional to continually seek ways to develop themselves. I now seek for new and updated formats of presenting CV any time I am adding details to my CV. While ensuring that I my CV remains formal, I have changed details such as recent contacts of my referees. In my recent most CV I placed my work experience before my educational qualifications because I believe that my employers are more after my work experience that they are about my educational qualifications. I also have to come up with a high-quality CV by:-
- Selecting good quality font (11 or 12 New Times Roman
- Avoiding multicolored graphics and texts on the CV
- Maintaining uniform 1” margins all round the text
- Highlighting the section headings accordingly- font style or italicizing.
- Highlighting in BOLD important details such as the names of degrees, job titles, and papers written.
- Using consistent ‘bullets’ throughout the document
- Including a name and page on the header
- Enclosing an application photo at the top right hand corner of the first page.
I also make sure that I tailor each of my CV’s to suit the job description given. This has the potential to greatly increase my chances of being invited for an interview.
The recent mock interview that I had was an eye-opener. It is the application letter that bears the personal and professional appeal for one to get an audience with an interviewing panel. Since then, I have been practicing to write application letter and asking my friends to evaluate them, I have improved tremendously by learning to be careful with my grammar, punctuation, language and formality. Most importantly, I have learnt that it is very beneficial for me to establish the gender of the recipient of my application. Addressing a letter to a “Sir” instead of a “sir/madam” indicates that the applicant is interested in the affairs of the company. In the same vein, it is crucial to get the addresses and the exact spellings for the company’s name and location among other things.
In the preparation for an interview I have learnt that adequate preparation and courage are the keys to succeeding in an interview. If am prepared for an interview it gives me a sense of calmness and confidence when answering questions. I have also learnt to be truthful and honest in interviews. When telling the truth there are low chances of contradicting myself and I shall create a good impression on the interviewers.
Self awareness was the first step in the realization of a fulfilling career. Once I discovered my strengths and weaknesses, I could then apply intrinsic and acquired knowledge to make an informed decision on a career. The fulfillment of this career is subject to me becoming aware of opportunities that exist and then selecting the path and opportunity that best utilizes my strengths while continually enabling me to overcome weaknesses.
References
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