Gap Analysis

Requirements for job as stated in job advert

The purpose of this assignment is for you to enhance your employability and job-readiness. You will:
demonstrate your understanding of how to search for and win job opportunities
recognise suitable graduate job opportunities
identify the requirements of a job and compare these against your current competencies (gap analysis)
create tailored application documents for a mock job application
develop a detailed step-by-step plan to bridge the gaps identified in your gap analysis and enhance your employability.
You must use the Portfolio template to record your answers to all questions. The Portfolio template is found in the Portfolio tab of the course page.
When answering all questions, reflect upon self-knowledge you have clarified, and career development, planning and management information acquired during this course.

1). 
The purpose of this question is for you to:
think about, and find, a suitable graduate job that appeals to you,
compare your current competencies to those required for the job you find, and
identify the gaps between your current competencies and those required for the job you find as a step towards bridging the gaps to maximise your alignment with the job (and, therefore, your likelihood of employment).
Upload a copy of a job advertisement for a position you could apply for when you graduate from your current Program of study. Include the entire job ad (from top to bottom!) and upload it as a separate document (do not include a link instead – the job ad could expire at any time, after which it will not be accessible!). If there is a position description available, you must include it also.
Using Table 1, complete a gap analysis to compare your current competencies against those required for the graduate job you identified and uploaded. Detail appropriate evidence (achievement statements) for any existing competencies. Add rows to Table 1 if needed.
 

2).
The purpose of this question is to create a persuasive job application that draws upon the self-knowledge that aligns with the requirements of a job and organisation. By completing this question, you will gain experience in creating three tailored application documents commonly requested during a recruitment process: a cover letter, resume and short video. You can adapt these documents in the future when applying for jobs.
Use Australian conventions as taught in this course to create a targeted application aimed at winning an interview for the job you identified in Question 1. Create the following application documents and submit them as separate documents (these separate documents contribute to your total word count):
cover letter,
resume, and
video of why you would be the best person for this job (2 minute maximum). Include transcript of video dialogue in Portfolio template Question 2.
To ensure targeted, persuasive documentation, you will need to communicate a strong alignment between the job and what you have to offer the employer. Your application documents need to address the job requirements, and include specific examples that demonstrate your competencies. Do not create untrue information about yourself – the aim is to sell the value you have as best you can to this employer.

3). Question 3. 
The purpose of this question is for you to consider:
ways to find job vacancies,
how to be strategic in your job search,
the differences between digital and face-to-face interviews,
the implications of digital interviews for candidates.

a) Compare and contrast how to job search using both the visible and hidden job markets. Outline a job search strategy to maximise your chances of job search success. 
b) When preparing for and undertaking a digital interview, what factors might a candidate need to consider, or consider differently, compared with undertaking a traditional face-to-face interview? Given the rising popularity of digital interviews as a method of selection, what can you do to maximise your success in a digital interview?

4).
The purpose of this question is for you to identify and plan out key activities to bridge the gaps identified in your gap analysis. Following your plan will move you from your present self to a future version of yourself who would be successful in winning the job identified in Question 1.
Use Table 2 to create a detailed step-by-step plan that bridges the gaps between your current competencies and those required to win the job identified in Question 1.
Include the job title exactly as it appears in the job ad. Goals need to be clear and concise. Actions need to be specific, measurable, achievable and relevant. Dates need to be staggered appropriately with sufficient duration for actions to be achievable.

1). 

Cover Letter

Name

Address

Address

Phone # and email

 Date

Mandalay Flowers

Human Resource Manager

Address

Dear Mr. Stewart

I am contacting you regarding the job florist job advertised on the internet. Working at Mandalay flowers would be a great opportunity for me to expand my experience and knowledge of the florist business while contributing my passion for flowers, art and design.

I am in my final year, and I major in Business management. Through my course, I have understood the work and importance of the day to day operations in a business. I have been working for my aunt’s florist business and this has equipped me with practical experience of the florist business. I have learned how to maintain flowers including cutting, conditioning, watering, wrapping and pricing. I am also creative, coming up with different arrangements and flower combinations to bring out their colors.

At the florist business, I had the opportunity to interact with clients and handle their complaints boosting their customer experience. I have learned how to relate with customers, planning deliveries and teaching clients how to take care of indoor plants, flowers and other products. Through these experiences, I have attained background knowledge and I can apply this knowledge, enabling me to make huge contributions to Mandalay flowers.

Besides my strong academic background and practical experience in the florist business, I have valuable leadership and team building experience both as the leader of the Geography club in my school and as a team player in my aunt's florist business. As the Geography club we undertook different projects including a program for environmental conservation. I led the active group, planting trees and educating others on the effects of pollution and other activities that relate to the environment. We also got rid of all plastic containers and papers in school and distributed recyclable garbage bins. At the florist business, we worked as a team especially when it came to decoration of weddings, building, churches and houses. Everyone had a different duty and we all played our role to make sure that we exceeded the client’s expectations.

I believe that my experience will be benficial to Mandlay flowers and I belive I have a lot of ideas I can contribute to make the business better. I look forward to meeting you to further discuss how I can poistivey cointrbute to Mandalay flowers.

Your competency: none / beginner / intermediate / advanced

Sincerely
Name

Resume

Name

Address

Phone Number

[email protected]

Professional summary

Extensively innovative and creative florist with vast freelance and in-house experience. Possesses quality sales and customer service skills and works with corporate and individual clients for each scale and type of event display. I have strong understanding of management of floral inventory and maintaining contact with suppliers. Achieving utmost customer satisfaction. Extensive scientific knowledge of all botanical branches besides aesthetics. Specializes in the organization of deliveries and creation of new arrangements

Core Qualifications

• Expertise in garden revitalization
• High proficiency in traditional floral and traditional tropical floral design styles
• Strong sales experience
• Expertise in price design and profit margin management
• Good rapport with suppliers
• High understanding of a floral shop inventory
• Dedicated and reliable worker
• Ability to maintain and manage an online portal
• Aesthetic and scientific knowledge in fresh foliage plants, blooming plants and fresh flower types
• Skilled team player and leader
• Up notch customer and interpersonal skills
• Ability to lift over 50 pounds, walks, and stands for lengthy hours.

Experience

Floral Designer

Botany Flower   (1/4/2017-1/4/2018)

• Recorded and totaled purchases for corporate and individual clients
• Decorated private rooms and halls for parties
• Accountable for rotating inventory to make sure that customers only bought the fresh flowers
• Worked with the sales people assisting customers to choose arrangements and then finalizing the sale
• Set daily deliveries and made sure that all deliveries were made on time and accurately
• Designed and created seasonal window displays
• Assisted in creating and marketing new arrangements both in local fliers and online
• Collected information from clients to come up with new ways of how arrangements should be done to meet the customer’s expectations
• Stored, cut and watered flowers and plants
• Designed wedding, holiday and graduation even displays of dried and fresh flower arrangements
• Maintained customer records and handled customer complaints and queries
• Ordered and purchased flowers from wholesalers and growers
• Ensured cleanliness and health of flowers and foliage before storage

Education

Final Year- Business Management

Video Transcript

Interviewer: Hello (Name) nice to meet you. Your resume is impressive but with all the qualified candidates why should I hire you?

Me: I think this is the most important question. Is this the best job for me? Am I the right person for your team? However, I have extensive experience in the florist business; I know about taking care of flows and plants, decoration and customer service. I believe I am the right person to join your team.

Interviewer: Since you have been in the florist business for some time, in your opinion, what is this business lacking.

Me: I think you need to improve on customer service. Flowers are not a necessity and some people prefer buying the artificial flowers since they are easier to manage. Hence customer service is imperative to gain competitive advantage. Customers’ grievances should be addressed promptly and they should be advised on how to take care of the flowers and plants. When a customer feels appreciated they will always come back.

Interviewer: We would like people who can work flexibly both in a team and individually and also succumb well to change. Can you be flexible in such a manner?

Me:  My experience at Botany Flowers is the best example for this question. I learned a lot and I adapted well to the working practices. This was my first professional experience and I was part of a team working on major projects while also undertaking individual responsibilities in the project. For example we would decorate weddings, churches and parties as a team but I had individual duties. We had a weekly review projects as a tea, where we contributed to decision making and planning for the projects making sure that individual work was going on as planned. In one meeting we had to address new changes that the client had made to the original requirements. I reviewed the work with the manager and came up with a solution to the changes. We made the changes and this did not affect the completion date. We still finished the project on time.

Your evidence of competency - specific examples, stories, achievement statements

Interviewer: Thank you for your tie I think I have heard enough to make my decision.

Me: Welcome and thank you too for time, hope to see you soon.

2)

Job search

The hidden job market includes the jobs that are not advertised and can only be found though networking via contacts in different companies. Most people do not use their relationship with their contacts to their fullest benefit. For job seekers to get jobs in the hidden job market, they must notify people that they need a job. It may be difficult at first since unlike in the visible job market where one only applies for the advertised jobs without having to tell anyone; in the hidden job market, the contacts must know you have a problem (Hargittai and Litt, 2013). However, this becomes easier as time goes by since people realize that everyone passed through that stage and due to the support and help, they get. Job seekers must also know job vacancies and their passionate fields.

Nonetheless, job searching may be challenging since before one gets the right job they must explore their options and interview for many jobs. A colleague or friend may have the best job for you but you have to go and find more about the job and if it suits you. Even though job search in the hidden job market depends on networking while in the visible job market, one only has to apply for the advertise jobs, for one to succeed they have to follow a job search strategy.

First, it is important to know what you want. Job searchers should be clear about the career they want and they have to pursue it. They should come up with a list of the things they want in a job and summarize them into five top qualities they should be seeking in employment (Yate, 2017). When they meet with people and when they apply for jobs, they are clear about what they want and they do not waste a lot of employers’ times, their time and the contacts’ time.

In most cases, people get out of touch with their contacts since they feel like they are a bother. However, it is important to set up meetings with them including drinks, phone calls, lunch and coffee dates. If it is possible, you can even plan for a walk with them. Spending time with them, you get to talk about your career and they may give better options or solutions (Hansen, 2013).  If you do not have contacts, network traditionally in formal functions such as conferences, career fairs and commence events. Contact people in your network including LinkedIn connections and college alumni and notify family, and friends about your job search (Wrzus, et al., 2013).

Super talented florists with a minimum of 2 years’ experience- an absolute must

Conduct extensive research online, and apply for jobs that suit your needs. You could then investigate if you know anyone in the company that could help you present your resume to the hiring manager (Yate, 2017). In some cases, it is discouraging since some individuals do not reply after you follow up but do not lose heart. There may be different reasons why the person has not replied. Continue with your search till you get lucky (Caliendo, Cobb-Clark and Uhlendorff, 2015).

If you are interested in working in certain companies, it is advisable that you contact the employers of interest. Do not wait for them to post jobs but reach out to them, by making a call, visiting the office or writing a letter of interest.

 You can also volunteer in the company of interest. Regardless of the field, if the company is in need of volunteers, sign up and as you get accustomed to the company and the employees, disclose your interest of working there. If you want to remain in the company but working in a different position, dig around for information, but quietly not to alert employers into thinking that you want to leave (Alós-Ferrer and Prat, 2012).

Follow the companies in the social media and other platforms and subscribe to new alerts for the companies that you want to work for (). From these platforms, you will get any new information concerning the companies such as expansion, or mergers, which may indicate chances of hiring.

Interview

Face to face interviews are conducted physically in one on one conversation while digital interviews are mostly conducted through the internet. Face to face interviews are flexible, structured and adaptable since they depend on social interaction and they can be monitored within the interview environments. Through stimuli, the interviewees can be observed to assess whether they are being completely open about the issues or not (Irvine, Drew and Sainsbury, 2013). However, face-to-face interviews contribute to interview bias and both parties have limited time.

On the other hand, digital interview are less expensive since the interviewer does not have to travel and they consume less time. Interviewers do not have to be present. Nonetheless, the interviewer cannot efficiently observe stimuli to tell if the interviewee is being truthful or not and they mostly rely on their word.

To succeed in a digital interview, you have to do a lot of research about the company. Furthermore, you have to know what the internet says about you. Read about the company and visit some news websites, searching for the company’s updates and features. Know what is going on in the industry and the company (Litt et al., 2013). After research, come up with the commonly asked questions and answers to these questions. Also, make up a list of facts including what you know about the company. Summarize the facts into the most relevant facts that the employer may be interested in.

Beginner

Most digital interviews are behavioral based since employers are in the lookout for certain skills such as motivation, leadership and creative problem solving skills. The questions asked are based on gathering information on when and how you exhibited these skills. Hence, revisit your past and read a lot of case studies and people’s experiences on how they have exploited these skills, at work, class projects, club, school projects and work environments (Kuhn and Mansour, 2014). If you have some examples you can reference them when the questions are asked, and the chances of succeeding are higher.

A digital interview may be unnatural and uncomfortable, just like speaking in front of a camera. Hence, practice out loud while recording yourself to deal with stage fright (Janghorban, Roudsari and Taghipour, 2014). You can review your behavior on camera and practice until it is perfect. Ask a friend to help you out, interviewing you through an online video chat. Give your friend some interview questions or tell them to come up with the questions and see how you fair.

Take note of the production values since you should make a good impression (Mattfeld, 20130. Make sure that the camera is well placed at the right angle and you have a powerful internet connection. Also, make sure that the computer you are using is efficient and is working at its best. Ensure that you are at an appropriate distance from the camera so that you are only visible from just below the shirt collar and up (Bailo, 2013). Your face should not also cover the whole screen. Dress appropriately and ensure the room is well lit and the background noise is as minimal as possible. Moreover, take note of what is visible in the background. Dirty clothes, inappropriate posters, drug tools, beer bottles and other inappropriate items should not be visible on camera.

It is challenging to maintain a person’s attention in a digital interview. Hence, ensure that the answers are short and precise. Get to the point as quickly as possible and effectively. Through this, everyone hears what you say.

Since the one behind the screen on the side only see a part of you, you may appear to be very enthusiastic even if you do not intend. Make sure you fluctuate your voice to ensure you do not come out as flat. Smile in some instances and tilt your head in some cases to signify different expressions. By observing your gestures, the interviewer will be interested to listen.

4).

Alós-Ferrer, C. and Prat, J. (2012) Job market signaling and employer learning. Journal of Economic Theory, 147(5), pp.1787-1817.

Bailo, P.J. (2013) The Essential Digital Interview Handbook: Lights, Camera, Interview: Tips for Skype, Google Hangout, GoToMeeting, and More. Red Wheel/Weiser.

Caliendo, M., Cobb-Clark, D.A. and Uhlendorff, A. (2015) Locus of control and job search strategies. Review of Economics and Statistics, 97(1), pp.88-103.

Hansen, K. (2013) A foot in the door: networking your way into the hidden job market. Ten Speed Press.

Hargittai, E. and Litt, E. (2013) New strategies for employment? internet skills and online privacy practices during people's job search. IEEE security & privacy, 11(3), pp.38-45.

Irvine, A., Drew, P. and Sainsbury, R. (2013) Am I not answering your questions properly?’Clarification, adequacy and responsiveness in semi-structured telephone and face-to-face interviews. Qualitative Research, 13(1), pp.87-106.

Janghorban, R., Roudsari, R.L. and Taghipour, A. (2014) Skype interviewing: The new generation of online synchronous interview in qualitative research. International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being, 9(1), p.24152.

Kuhn, P. and Mansour, H. (2014) Is Internet job search still ineffective?. The Economic Journal, 124(581), pp.1213-1233.

Mattfeld, D.C. (2013) Evolutionary search and the job shop: investigations on genetic algorithms for production scheduling. Springer Science & Business Media.

Wrzus, C., Hänel, M., Wagner, J. and Neyer, F.J. (2013) Social network changes and life events across the life span: a meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin, 139(1), p.53.

Yate, M. (2017) Knock'em Dead: The Ultimate Job Search Guide. Simon and Schuster.