Professional Development Role in Employment

Introduction

Professional development is closely associated with talents, abilities, and skills that should be gained for reaching professional growth. In addition, practical skills needed are based on various categories of learning from college graduation, training courses, educational practice to final courses. All these components are toughly intertwined into a complex system of knowledge acquisition that further contributes to gaining professional experience. It is also important to note that there are a great number of strategies for professional development that can be effective enough to meet the employers’ strict requirements.

To be more precise, there is a bulk of nuances to which employers pay the closest attention, and some of them are based on past experiences and current theoretical frameworks. In fact, it is really crucial for a future professional to be aware of what employers expect from them and how potential and promising candidate should look like. Such information is really useful because great competence in existing concepts, as well as knowledge of management psychology, will help graduated students to sustain competition and be applied for a prestigious job.

Major Skills and Capabilities Required by the Employees

The majority of employers often have high expectations of the abilities and skills of graduate recruits. They often look at a potential candidate as energetic, motivated, and adaptable. Some managers may want employees to make a contribution to their company, whereas others are more concerned with developing and training the employer’s potential. One way or another, one of the most demanded skills include desire to learn, self-motivation, commitment and dependability, working in a team, cooperation and great communicational skills, and, finally, self-management¹.

Judging from the above-presented skills and abilities, it should be stressed that not all of them are connected solely to your knowledge and competence, but also to your goals, personality traits, and ambitions. In this respect, employers often pay close attention to individual skills, including strengths and weaknesses, and define competence as a unity of personal characteristics and overall professional performance and attitude to work.

In order to understand the employers, it is necessary to start with self-evaluation to define which skills have been acquired and which ones still need to be gained with regard to modern selecting tendencies. It is obvious that specific technical and professional knowledge is essential, but in order to be considered for a prestigious work, some other skills should be acquired. Particular emphasis should be put on communication skills and the ability to negotiate and work in team². These integral and universal skills are imperative for succeeding in job interviews. Bearing this in mind, a graduate recruit should consider specific literature on organizational psychology, management, and cultural diversity issues.

Beside personal traits, such aspects as level of education, professional experience, and extra courses taken are also carefully considered by the employers. They use this information as a signal, or predictor of the employees’ future performance. According to Lesgold et al., “the costs to employers of obtaining various kinds of information might overweigh the information’s potential usefulness, thereby discouraging employers from seeking information that would better enable them to judge worker qualities”³. Hence, each employer should focus on the analysis of an employer in the course of face-to-face communication or interview.

Analysis of the Skills and Capabilities Developed During the Course

Before considering the skills gained during the course, it should be stressed that some skills I have successfully managed to acquire, such as communicativeness and self-management whereas some skills need to be polished and developed in future, such as teamwork, dependability, and ability to cooperate. Regarding the employers’ major requirements for a graduate recruit, there are certain skills and capabilities that have been successfully acquired and the ones that are to be gained in the future.

In particular, I believe that knowledge of several languages is a great advantage for my job because it will help me socialize effectively with people from different cultures, particularly with those who have Greek and French roots. Excellent command of English is also crucial because it is the most widely used language in the world, and it is a language of business communication. In addition, a high level of language competence can significantly contribute to my further development and professional growth.

The second advantageous package of skills I have acquired is great self-discipline and the ability to face difficult and challenging situations. My experience in communicating with employers has contributed to my understanding of the major peculiarities and threats of production management. I have realized that professional knowledge and competence are of primary importance when it comes to critical situations, and when the only way out is to act quickly and make immediate decisions. In this respect, I know what it means to provide viable solutions to the trickiest problems because product management is not only knowledge of the major stages of manufacturing, but also readiness to act and solve problems.

Although leadership skills are not popular among employers, I believe they are still necessary to gain because they greatly deposit to the process of decision-making. In addition, great assertiveness and the ability to stand a rigorous competition will make me less vulnerable to the emerging contingencies. What is more important is that the qualities of a leader involve desire to learn, aspiration for innovative techniques, and respect for others. According to Rossiter and Ferguson, leadership entails the ability to socialize effectively with others irrespective of difficulties and challenging situations⁴. Finally, strict adherence to rules and great awareness of duties and obligations to be taken in the future will make me more confident while carrying out my job.

Gaps to Be Fulfilled While Comparing the Employers’ Requirements and the Acquired Skills

After a thorough consideration of the skills that should be acquired and the ones that have already been mastered, certain gaps exist that should be immediately fulfilled to increase chances to get the desirable job. I will primarily focus on the analysis of self-motivation and incentives, dependence and flexibility, and, finally, cooperation and working in a team.

As my purpose lies in looking for a job in the sphere of business administration and product management, self-motivation and straightforwardness are inherent components for achieving success. Moreover, these skills are crucial for defining the essential purposes as well as the multiple responsibilities and obligations I will be involved in. In order to develop self-management and self-motivation, the following steps should be taken:

1. Setting a goal and adhere to it irrespective of challenges occurred;
2. Establishing short-term and long-term objectives;
3. Predicting challenging that you might face while performing a particular business operation;
4. Adjusting to new conditions and circumstances;
5. Setting objectives for self-improvement as well as to measure to be taken to improve my performance and productivity;
6. Identifying major and weaknesses of your character;
7. Evaluating the outcomes and giving reward⁵.

All these stages should be consistently fulfilled to reach the desirable effect and track progress while performing those.

I clearly understand that flexibility, cooperation, and working in team skills are imperative for a successful adaptation to the employed environment. In this regard, I plan to enhance those abilities by advancing my communicational and problem-solving skills. I also realize that the main essence of successful cooperation lies in listening to each other’s opinions, sharing experiences, and evaluating the shortcomings of the decisions made. United forces provide more chances for performing managerial procedures in a more appropriate way. I should also admit that constantly working in the team contributes to better allocating the roles and responsibilities and monitoring the overall performance⁶

Foonotes

1. Jenner, 2000, The graduate career handbook: making the right start for a bright future. Pearson Education, London, p. 16.
2. Jenner, p. 17.
3. AM Lesgold, MJ Feuer, and AM Black,1997, National Research Council, Transitions in Work and Learning: Implications for Assessment: Paper and Proceedings. National Academies, New York.
4. DA Rossiter, JG Ferguson, 2004, Leadership Skills. Infobase Publishing, New York, p. 8
5. H Koontz and H Weinrich, 2005, Essentials of Management, Tata McGraw-Hill Education, p. 288.
6. of TJ Watson, 2008, Sociology, work, and industry. Taylor & Francis, London.

Bibliography

Jenner, S, 2000, The graduate career handbook: making the right start for a bright future. Pearson Education, London.

Koontz, H, and Weinrich, H, 2005, Essentials of Management, Tata McGraw-Hill Education.

Lesgold, AM, Feuer, MJ, and Black, AM, 1997, National Research Council, Transitions in Work and Learning: Implications for Assessment: Paper and Proceedings, National Academies, New York.

Rossiter, DA, Ferguson, JG, 2004, Leadership Skills. Infobase Publishing, New York

Watson, TJ, 2008, Sociology, work, and industry. Taylor & Francis, London.