BUSS2000 Career Plan Report - Assessment 1 - Completed 2021 Semester 1. Credit Mark PDF

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Summary

Report analysing strengths and weaknesses, as well as career goals and outlined using the SMART framework. Also analysed how values and ethics link with career goals....

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Career Plan Report Part 1 – Self-Assessment: Preferences: A key preference of mine is to secure a role working in the financial services industry as I possess a keen interest in the role of financial intermediaries in the market and the complex problems they face. This preference is also supported by my desire to gain a high income earning job after finishing my degree. My motivation scale (see Appendix) supports the aforementioned due to my high levels of extrinsic motivation. However, extrinsic sources of motivation are typically less effective as these types of rewards e.g. monetary rewards, may make a job feel more obligatory rather than a genuine interest leading to decreased overall motivation (Deci, Koestner, and Ryan, 1999). The impact of motivation on my preferences is also demonstrated by my high numeric reasoning results indicative of high cognitive ability. Since Schmidt and Hunter (1998) posit that cognitive ability is the foremost indicator of job performance, it is fair that my career preferences lean toward problem solving and overcoming challenges since our preferences are often in alignment with our strengths.

Strengths: Communication Skills: One of my key strengths is strong communication skills. This skill is demonstrated in my work as a tutor at Sandbox Learning Australia. For a student of mine, their results in mathematics were quite poor, mainly due to them not understanding key concepts. I took the initiative to create a customised syllabus and learning plan for the student and also took great care when explaining concepts to ensure that they always understood fully what I was teaching, before moving onto the next topic. Hence, I utilised Locke & Latham’s Goal Setting Theory as the basis of my communication as the theory highlights that setting specific and challenging goals in tandem with goal commitment and constructive feedback leads to higher performance. However, I was careful to not set the student too many goals as a drawback of this theory is that performance may be diminished; as being too conscientious may deteriorate performance as when challenges arise people cannot adapt (Judge, Piccolo, Podsakoff, Shaw and Rich, 2010). Finally, I also demonstrated this skill by being supportive

and motivating in order to increase the students diminished self-belief. I used “social persuasion”, an element of Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory, to improve their confidence and get them to believe they could understand the concepts. Consequently, I helped improve the students net mathematics results by approximately 20%.

High Emotional Intelligence: Another key strength of mine is high emotional intelligence which is illustrated through my emotional intelligence test results (see Appendix). High levels of emotional intelligence, one of the three individual difference factors, indicate that I can understand and respond to the emotions of myself and others well. For example, during my time as an athletics coach, there was an incident where one athlete was injured accidentally due to the actions of another athlete. Understandably, the parent of the injured athlete was quite distressed and began to make a commotion which made all the other athletes nervous. I took control of the situation by listening to the concerns of the parent from their perspective and gently reassured them that accidents happen and their child was okay – the injury was not severe. This was the best cause of action as actively listening to the concerns made the parent feel more comfortable and calm. As a result, the parent decided against pulling their child out of the athletics club due to my use of emotional intelligence to read the situation.

Areas for development: My biggest area for development is in my time management skills which can be best improved through the use of Goal Setting Theory (Locke and Latham, 1990). Time management is an essential skill in my chosen career as it enables you to complete tasks in the most efficient manner, allowing you to accomplish more by staying productive. Particularly in the financial services industry, which is a fast paced, stressful environment, in which minutes can alter the outcome of a key decision, Goal Setting Theory can help improve time management by setting challenging, actionable goals in combination with receiving constructive feedback from managers.

Part 2 – Career Goals, Values and Ethics:

SMART GOAL: Specific: My short-term career goal is to become proficient in Microsoft Excel, particular in areas related to financial modelling, financial statements, data projections and data interpretations. This goal helps me bridge the gap between my own understanding of the software and the experience possessed currently by analysts in the industry.

Measurable: Currently, there are online courses and modules, on websites such as LinkedIn and Lynda.com, which teach the Excel skills I want to learn. Attaining a certificate/accreditation in these courses is a tangible way to measure the success of my goal.

Attainable: Due to the aforementioned easy access to tutorials in the software online, this goal is quite attainable.

Relevant: Proficiency in Excel is almost a pre-requisite skill in the financial services industry. Hence, it is an extremely relevant goal as success will help me on a day-to-day basis whilst working. It also helps understand key concepts which are taught in my university major (Finance) and is a software used by many units of study.

Time bound: My deadline is the end of July, when Summer internship applications typically close. This specificity draws on Goal Setting Theory as it makes it more challenging, ensuring I am driven towards achieving the goal.

Values and Ethics:

During the Week 4 Workshop, I identified two of my key values to be “mastering new skills/knowledge” and “being rewarded for my effort”. Both are in clear alignment with the above SMART Goal. Becoming proficient in Excel will improve my skill set immensely and also help me become an expert in the software. Furthermore, I chose this goal using the PIC model (Gati and Levin, 2015). This helps facilitate career decision making by ranking choices from least to most important and using online databases to find alternatives. I ranked training as a the most important choice and when selecting alternatives, learning Excel was a clear choice – indicative of the emphasis I place on mastering new skills. Next, proficiency in Excel can help me stand out from the pool of applicants for an internship and thus help me in securing an internship – illustrative of being rewarded for my effort.

My idealism rating of 61 in my Ethics Position Questionnaire ranks slightly higher than my relativism rating of 54 (see Appendix), meaning I tend to slightly adopt more universal ethical rules (Forsyth, 1980). Learning Excel can help me to continue to follow this ethical practice as it will allow me to double check and cross reference financial statements with other people in the company I end up working for. As I am personally opposed to unethical behaviour like inflating values on financial statements, Excel skills will allow me to maintain an ethical stance by confirming financial values personally.

Part 3 – Integration: Preferably, I would like to work in the financial services industry at a financial intermediary. This directly aligns with my career goal of learning Excel, as the software is used on an almost day-to-day basis by analysts. Furthermore, my career preference also correlates with my key values of mastering skills, as I believe that working in such a challenging industry will not only hone my current skills but also help me cultivate new ones such as critical thinking. My strength of communication skills will be especially useful, I believe, as complex decisions are made every day in my desired industry. Hence, effectively communicating with colleagues through discussion and debate is necessary to ensure that the best outcome is achieved for the company I end up working at.

One of my other values is being rewarded for my effort. This does also correlate with my desire to earn a high income. Learning Excel as a career goal also helps in making this preference a reality as it differentiates me from the general population and also improves my skill set, thus increasing my ultimate earning potential. However, due to my high levels of extrinsic motivation, I must be careful to not simply seek the monetary reward, as doing so in this industry may require unnecessary risk or unethical behaviour, which I have already identified above as something which I feel quite strongly against due to my ethical orientation being primarily centred around idealism.

As mentioned above in the self-assessment, effective time management is a skill I need to develop in order to be successful in this field. This may be best achieved through an internship, as being placed in a stressful environment in which there are constant deadlines, meetings and projects to complete will help me learn to complete tasks more efficiently and be more productive. An internship will allow me to experience a real finance job, whilst still having lower overall expectations of me as opposed to the actual role. Furthermore, building on Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory (1995), I can employ social modelling, by working with and around other professionals to influence my own self belief that I can succeed. Confidence is one’s ability to complete the tasks and goals assigned to them increases the probability of the goal being completed, hence an internship will allow me to hone my skills and be better equipped to complete the job at hand.

References: Bandura, A. (1995). Self-efficacy in changing societies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627-668.

Forsyth, D.R. (1980). A Taxonomy of Ethical Ideologies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 39(1), 175-184.

Gati, I., & Levin, N. (2015). Making better career decisions. APA handbook of career intervention, 2, 193-207.

Judge, T. A., Piccolo, R. F., Podsakoff, N. P., Shaw, J. C., & Rich, B. L. (2010). The relationship between pay and job satisfaction: A meta-analysis of the literature. Journal of vocational behaviour, 77(2), 157–167.

Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting & task performance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, US: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1998). The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: Practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings. Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 262-274.

Part 4 – Appendix:...