Personal Development Planning: Improving Interpersonal Skills and Employability Prospects

Areas to Improve:

You are required to do some personal development planning.  Consider your strengths and weaknesses in terms of your interpersonal skills; what do you want - or need – to do to improve your employment prospects.  You will need to review what skills and attributes employers are looking for.

1.General Networks. Belonging to professional groups, clubs and societies related to your intend career will help you keep your knowledge up to date and build your credibility along with networking opportunities

2.Interpersonal skills- Creativity. Personal Skill include the ability to solve problems, generate ideas, mange your self and your time keeping.

3.CVs and Applications. One of the most widely discussed careers skills is the ability to write a great CV and make yourself stand out in your job applications.

4.Interpersonal Skills. Communication. Beining able to communicate well, demonstrate leadership, work with others in team, and the ability to persuade and inspire are important interpersonal skills.

5.Career Decision Making. Before you move forward you will need to be able to review your options and decide on which path you are going to take.

Select 5 areas in which you feel you need to improve.  For each one, write a single sentence SMART target that encapsulates what you intend to do to improve, what your timescale is and how you are going to do it. Then, for each objective, write approximately 400 words in which you reflect on your ability in that area, consider what the experts say about it, why it is important for your employability prospects, anything you think could make it difficult to achieve and how you might overcome that.  

Then summarise what you propose to do on a development plan (in Appendix), which then will act as your single page reminder of what to do and when you need to do it – this will sit in your appendices and not count in your overall word count.

Your submission will therefore consist of two parts; the explanation about each of your objective (2,000 words) and a personal development plan.

You are expected to research to find out more about the topic areas that you have identified, and this selection of literature and your referencing are part of the marking critieria.

·Overall Goal: I want to run my own consulting business.

S.M.A.R.T. Goal: Within one month, I will land my first client after organizing a sensible plan for sending out pitches.

1. General Networks

Specific: Using my network, I will seek out companies in need of my consulting services.

Measurable: I will pitch my first three clients within two weeks, aiming to pitch five per week thereafter.

Achievable: I will competently outline what I can do for businesses, I will perfect my pitch, and work on my portfolio.

Relevant: Knowing this is something I'm good at, I will utilize my contacts and remain focused on my dream to do work I enjoy.

Time-based: I will start pitching clients immediately; within a month, I will have my first paying client.

Fit to Submit: Assignment checklist

This brief assignment checklist is designed to be given to students to help them avoid some of the most common mistakes they make on their coursework.

I propose we add it as an appendix to all our assignment briefs on the Foundation Year Business for the next academic year.

Students often lose marks for forgetting some of the more straightforward elements of their assignments.  We recommend that you “tick off” each of the points below as you prepare your work for submission.  If you need any help, ask your seminar tutor or unit leader.

TICK

Have you kept to the word count? 10% under or over the word count is usually OK.  If you are not sure, check with your tutor.

Have you read and understood the assessment criteria?

Have you met the Assessment Criteria? You will lose marks and your work may even be failed if you have not. (The Assessment Criteria is detailed in the grid attached to the Assessment Brief).

Have you demonstrated that you can write critically?  Show you have supported your arguments using academic literature; you have presented ideas and information which challenges thinking, and you have offered discussion points which extends your own or others’ viewpoints.

Have you maintained an academic tone throughout your work?  Have you tried to avoid using the same words over and over again?

Have you checked that the referencing/bibliography in your assignment is in line with the Harvard Referencing system used by SSU.

Have you proof-read your work and used spellcheck software to check your spelling and grammar?

Have you presented your work in a professional way?  Your work should be formatted logically and consistently.  Text in different fonts and of differing sizes often indicates copy and pasting.  Spacing of headings and paragraphs should be consistent.  Page numbering is useful and a contents page is essential if appendices have been included in your work.

Can you confirm that the work submitted is your own and not plagiarised?

It is useful to “grade” your work before submission.  This gives you an indication of the grade you think your work merits.  When your assessment has been marked you will be able to compare your grade and use your feedback more effectively to develop your academic work and improve your future grades.