Considerations For Choosing A Suitable Career Path

Factors to consider when choosing a career path

When discussing the types of roles you would like to apply for, it is useful to consider how these might fit in with your long-term vision. Imagine yourself travelling approximately 5 or 10 years into the future. This activity is not about laying down a rigid plan but to help you gain a sense of the type of life you want, so you can make the right kinds of choices to achieve it (200 words).

Aspect Write your own vision of this aspect below On a scale of 1-10 how important is it to you?

I consider the most important things in my life to be… Education, when one is educated he not only benefits himself but the whole community. An educated person can explore the world without any difficulty in communication.

Living in which part of the world and in what kind of place? In Australia, it is amongst the wealthiest nation in the world, Investing in this country will be a plus for me.

Working for myself? Working for a large company? Working for a small company?

I prefer working for myself because I love being the boss. When I run my company am able to create job opportunities. Working for myself is advantageous because am able to make changes anytime without having to follow a very long channel. 

In an office? In the field?  

Marketing and sales manager, I work for five days in a week. The work is challenging because I have to convince my clients that my product is the best in the market over every other product. Mostly I prefer being in the field to interact with the customers and look for more clients. 6

With what kind of work/life balance (consider hours of work/stress levels)?

Marketing my products and making sure my sales representatives are pushing the sales. I work for eight hours a day. 5

Taking a lead? Taking responsibility? Working individually? Part of a team?

I prefer working as a team because you feel motivated; you become more creative and competitive. In an organization there are individuals who take time to learn; when you work as a team the weaker members are strengthened by the stronger members of the team. 7

Working with colleagues who are… artistic? intellectual? practical? caring? competitive? I prefer working with competitive individuals because they challenge me to explore more and come up with the best ideas to outdo my competitors. Competitive individuals will also help you give quality services to your clients for you to retain them.

Job duties

I enjoy spending my time outside work doing… When I am not working I enjoy spending my time with the less privileged. Spending time with this people gives them hope that tomorrow might be better than today. Putting a smile on someone’s face has been my greatest desire and I feel fulfilled whenever I spent my time with this individuals.

Portfolio Evidence [Week 1] Potential roles and their suitability

Using one of the roles you discussed in your week 1 tutorial, complete the following table below (use the following example to guide you; write 300 words):  

EXAMPLE: My desired Role is: Retail Manager

Key Skills required My current experience in this skill

Effective Leadership Skills In my current job as a retail assistant, I have helped to manage the store and train staff in the absence of my manager. However, this is an area I need to gain more experience and confidence in.

The ability to plan and prioritise workloads

My experience at GSM has helped me develop these skills, although there is a still a little room for improvement as I need to start work on my assignments earlier.

How does this role match my long term vision?

I think I would enjoy the fast-paced and varied nature of the work and wouldn’t mind taking responsibility for different areas of the business. ..(please continue)

Some retail manager positions may involve working long hours and I would be worried that I would not achieve a work-life balance…..(please continue).

My desired Role is:   EVENTS  OPERATION MANAGER

Key Skills required My current experience in this skill –Use own words

As a marketing and sales manager, team work has helped me achieve organisational goals and objectives within a short period of time. Working as a team has helped us improve our services altogether.

Good leadership translates into good performance of your employees and the organization at large. My experience as a sales and marketing manager is that a good leader creates a harmonious environment for employees and the management.

As a leader I have learnt the skill of good communication, communicating with your employees effectively promotes team work and loyalty.  I am able to delegate duties to the employees hence smooth flow of work.

Planning is a crucial feature in the management of an organisation. As a marketing and sales manager I learnt that for the organization to achieve its goals good planning is needed. Planning also reduces conflicts among the employees since every staff will be given their role in the organization.

Work environment

Ability to work under pressure.

Although I need to improve on this skill, as a sales Manager I have learnt to work under pressure. Working under pressure challenges me and I have to accomplish the set goals within a given time.

How does this role match my long term vision? – Use own words

Advantages Disadvantages

I would prefer working in a team work as it may result in bigger profit margins in an organization.

As a sales manager I would work hard as a leader to see my organization among the leading companies.

I would prefer communicating with the staff’s one on one to create a good working environment for us all.

A well planned organization would have zero chances of collapsing.

I would feel motivated finishing a task under given time.

Team work will bring about conflicts due to ideological differences hence delay in decision making.

Good leadership may not be achieved easily due to different personalities of the employees.

As much as every organisation needs good communication skills am worried employees would use that platform to satisfy their personal desires.

Planning would discourage introduction of new ideas in the organisation

As a marketing manager I would fail to deliver quality services due to too much pressure.

Once you have allocated all your points, total each column. The highest two totals represent your primary and secondary preferred team roles.

After your tutorial, comment briefly on your primary and secondary team roles, what they represent and to what extent you agree with the outcome, using evidence of past experiences to support your position :

Negotiations are complex. One factor is how different cultures approach negotiating when doing business internationally. In the following scenario, what cultural misunderstandings could occur and what strategies can you undertake to minimise those misunderstandings? Write two paragraphs (150 words).

Saudi Arabia is using its vast oil wealth to build $400bn of new infrastructure with major rail, healthcare and construction projects. A British and Chinese company have been awarded two of the largest contracts. They need to negotiate with each other and the Saudis to plan some of the transport projects

1.One of the cultural misunderstandings in this scenario is the negotiating goal- contract or the relationship. The negotiator from these two organization full different cultures could view the purpose of negotiation differently.

2.Negotiating attitude: Win-lose or win-win. Due to the differences in the culture, personality or both, the business persons in these organizations could appear to approach deal making with one or two basic attitudes (Long and Bailey, 2017). That negotiation is a process to which either win-win or struggle with each and one side win and the other one loses.

Clarification of the goal: It is important to understand clearly what the other side is seeking to achieve. Looking at the interests allows for the understandings of the real goals.

Consideration of all viewpoints: During negotiation, there is great deal of time which could be spent in establishing the facts. Conflicts usually arise due to differences in the personal viewpoints (Long and Bailey, 2017). It is important to accept and understand someone else viewpoint.

In a professional environment we are often faced with complex situations revolving around ethical conduct. Decide on two ethical issues faced by you during your teamwork and discuss them in terms of ethical awareness (100 words):

Being punctual: arriving to the group on time, adhering to breaks during the discussion and attending all the scheduled meetings on time is an ethical issue which has affected the teamwork in one way or another. Some members knows that meetings are scheduled and do not attend any giving false promises they are held up somewhere.

Working with a positive attitude: In teamwork it is important to be pleasant and polite and at the same time take any difficult tasks with a cheerful attitude. In the group there are some members who did not have positive attitude towards the work we undertook, especially when the tasks were difficult they highlighted it was undoable and we should skip it.

References

Brundiers, K. and Wiek, A., 2017. Beyond Interpersonal Competence: Teaching and Learning Professional Skills in Sustainability. Education Sciences, 7(1), p.39.

Gilboy, M.B., Heinerichs, S. and Pazzaglia, G., 2015. Enhancing student engagement using the flipped classroom. Journal of nutrition education and behavior, 47(1), pp.109-114.

Kulturel-Konak, S., Konak, A., Kremer, G.O. and Esparagozza, I.E., 2015. Professional Skills Assessment: Is a Model of Domain Learning Framework Appropriate?. International Journal of Quality Assurance in Engineering and Technology Education (IJQAETE), 4(1), pp.33-60.

Kuravsky, L.S., Marmalyuk, P.A., Baranov, S.N., Alkhimov, V.I., Yuryev, G.A. and Artyukhina, S.V., 2015. A new technique for testing professional skills and competencies and examples of its practical applications. Applied Mathematical Sciences, 9(21), pp.1003-1026.

Long, E.C. and Bailey, D.C., 2017. The Professional Sequence and High-Impact Teaching: Skills, Methods, and Internships. In Field-Based Learning in Family Life Education (pp. 29-37). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Malekoff, A., 2015. Group work with adolescents: Principles and practice. Guilford Publications.