The Aim of Professional Skills Portfolio
Professional skills portfolio is designed with the aim of understanding and identifying an individual’s personal and professional skills. These skills must be carefully examined and analyzed. Such portfolios help individuals to not only identify their future goals but also assists in designing their path towards the same (Rao, 2013). At the beginning of a professional career, it is highly recommended to work upon a skills portfolio as it assists in analyzing the specific industry and job profile that complement the skills possessed (Dawson, 2013).
The long term vision
My long term mission is to establish myself as a successful marketing personnel who is responsible for strategic decision making in an organization. In my entire career span, I will be working with various organizations. I wish to make the most of this experience and learn substantially from all of them. My ultimate goal is to work with Apple Inc. at a strategic position. I wish to see myself in the Forbes’ list of the most influential personalities in the world. I also aim to work for various environmental causes and do my bit in making our planet more sustainable. For the same purpose, I would like to start a non-profit organization that works at creating technology which helps in reducing greenhouse gases in the environment.
I aim to work with the leading brands in the world in the field of marketing. My longer term aim involves being the chief marketing officer for Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is one of the most innovative organizations in terms of product offerings and customer service (Grant, 2016). My aim is to be a part of that organization and experience the change management first hand. Another important part of my long term plan is to continue working with new people from across different walks of life and enhance my learning in the process. I also have a goal of writing my own book which would consist of digital marketing strategies in the new age world. Every step that I take is a small progress towards these goals and I hope to accomplish each and every one of them to the best of my ability.
A professional skills audit helps employees in identifying their strengths and weakness and analyze what are the skills that would help them in accomplishing their professional goals. This audit also reflects upon what are the skills that need to be acquired by the employee to enhance and enrich the professional career of an individual (Bowman, West, Berman & Van Wart, 2016).
Skills possessed
I possess excellent communication and relationship building ability. My interpersonal skills and ability to build and maintain relationships with people are also above average. These skills help individuals in ensuring effective relationships with all the stakeholders of the organization (Arnold & Boggs, 2015). I often find myself in situations which require quick decision making and I have been successful with the same. I have led a team of over 30 people in the past and their cumulative performance is evident of my leadership skills. I strongly believe I can focus on organizational goals and help the business in achieving the targets set.
Long-Term Goals
I have taken online courses on digital marketing and social media marketing which will help me in enriching my job role and provide deep insights where I work (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2016). I am an innovative person and have often solved problems in a unique fashion. I can think outside the box and take the necessary risks to implement strategies which have not yet been tried before.
Skills that need to be learnt
Even though I have good digital marketing skills I lack the basic knowledge of computer programming which can hamper my career plan adversely. I plan on taking online courses to learn Java and .Net as I strongly believe that the knowledge of computer programming will provide an edge to my employment application. I also need to learn a couple of foreign languages. I aim to work at the Apple Inc. which is a multinational firm. Therefore an additional knowledge of foreign languages like Hindi, Spanish or German would help me lead on to bigger roles in the organization (Kohonen, Jaatinen, R., Kaikkonen, P., & Lehtovaara 2014).
Professional development plan
As my aim is to work with Apple Inc. My professional development plan requires me to apply for the position of an intern which would help me get an entry in the organization and build my connections to accomplish my longer term goal. At present, I plan to take an advanced course on digital marketing that would help me learn various digital marketing strategies that can be utilized to reach out to a new age customer. I plan on keeping a very strong product and subject knowledge about the Apple Inc.
Another thing that is expected to help me in my career is learning foreign languages. Apple Inc. is a multinational company and it would be wise to learn a couple of renowned languages in order to have an employment edge. Once I join the organization as an intern, I will continue to work with different teams and try to gauge as much learning as possible and get further clarity about my future goals.
Company
The company that I would personally want to be associated with and build my long career with is Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is a leading American multinational technology company that specializes in consumer electronics, computer software and online services. Apple is well known for the effectiveness of its customer delivery, the efficiency of its after sale service and the continued innovation which is evident in its product offering (Bregaj, Gibson & Pessey, 2014). No doubt, the firm is extremely selective about its selection criteria of candidates even interviewing for the firm (Arocha, 2017). Certain key qualities that they look for in the applying candidates are as below:
- Strong business acumen: This is required by the firm in order to ensure that the candidate hired at a senior position will be able to strategically make decisions for the growth and development of the business. Every business require people who can take risks and work towards a better future of the organization. This requires quick decision making skills and a strong business acumen (Lyons, S., Rogoff, E. G., Dean, M., & Marks, S2014). Which is why Apple Inc. makes sure that all their employees have entrepreneurial attributes who can build a sense of ownership for the organization and help to achieve its further growth.
- Effective communication skills are also required by the organization in order to establish relations with existing clients, attract new clients and maintain transparency in organizational information. Communication is a very crucial aspect that defines an individual’s personality. In large corporates, every day requires interactions with seniors, juniors, peers, media people, clients, customers and various other stakeholders. Therefore it becomes imperative that employees possess great communication skills in order to maintain transparency and efficiency in the organization (Cenere, Gill, Lawson & Lewis, 2015).
- Organizational skills help individuals maintain harmony in the system and adopt to the changing organizational cultures. This also helps employees in adapting to the changes in the organization and make decisions with the longer term success of the business in mind. Organizational skills also help employees in understanding and respecting the organizational hierarchy and processes.
- Strong quantitative analysis skills will provide an edge to the applying candidate. The continuous innovation and increasing use of technology requires employees to be quick with their number crunching ability.
- Ability to work under pressure becomes crucial in a company with a large base. There is a pressure to perform at all times and the employee targets are very high. This is the reason for the success of the company and hence it is important that employees are able to work hard and deliver quality performance under immense pressure (De Bono, 2015).
- Quick decision making is also an important criteria for a successful candidature with the Apple Inc. Corporate culture is so fast paced that it becomes essential for employees to be able to quickly comprehend a situation and take the best course of action. Which is why it is important that people are able to make quick yet effective decisions and are able to implement the same.
Professional skills covered for the roles of my choice
Over a period of time I have developed various qualities that would surely assist me in my professional career at the Apple Inc. Since early childhood, my quantitative analysis skills have been above par than most of my classmates. I really enjoy working with numbers and analyzing them. I have excellent communication skills. I have often participated in various presentations and competitions in school as well as college which required public speaking. I am also confident that I have good relationship management ability with people. This would help me build long term relationships with my clients. My course has taught me about the importance of leadership and I have also attended workshops which has enabled me to become a better leader. I tend to take criticism positively and work towards bettering myself.
Professional Skills Audit
I have also taken specialized courses and workshops on digital marketing as well as social media marketing. These marketing strategies are utilized by every leading business today. Therefore there is a high demand for such courses and my understanding of the same is expected to help me gain an edge in the industry where I will work. I have never worked in a company as big as the Apple Inc. therefore it is difficult for me to comprehend the pressure that I may have to face in the business. However, from my understanding yet, I believe I would have to work upon my ability to work under pressure. I would also be required to keep calm and act patiently during stressful working environment. These are the virtues that I hope to acquire in the coming years.
Opportunities in the industry
In this section of the report, the opportunities and job profiles existing in the market are identified which would be available to a fresh graduate. After graduation, the first job that students take more often than not defines the direction of their entire career span. Therefore it is important that students are given a clear direction and practicality of the opportunities available in the industry and the impact of that opportunity in their professional life. Listed below are few career options in the industry which are available to a fresh graduate:
- Sales and marketing: This is one of the most opted for profile in the business. As the name suggests, sales and marketing profile requires the employee to generate business for the firm by selling their primary offerings to the right consumers. It is a vast profile and the student would have various options to decide from. The pre sales profile helps the sales team in reaching out to potential customers. The after sale service team ensures that the customers are satisfied and that their grievances are addressed in a timely fashion. The up sale team has the aim of selling other services of the company to the existing customers (Agnihotri, Dingus, Hu & Krush 2016). Sales and marketing team also has the responsibility of effectively identifying the target market of the firm, define promotional tools that can be used to reach out to consumers, and designing and establishing marketing collaterals (Two pagers, brochures, posters, email marketing content, billboards, television advertisements etc.) that would be used by the firm to enhance brand awareness.
Analyzing the market competition and combating the same is also the job of a sales and marketing analyst. It is crucial that the student possess excellent communication skills, strong business acumen and solid interpersonal skills. This profile requires relationship building with clients and ensuring continuous follow ups. This in turn needs immense patience, perseverance and persistence. - Digital marketing analyst: Owing to increased globalization and digitalization of the world, everyone and everything is on the internet. This is what makes it important fort the employees in the current corporate scenario to be well versed with the changing marketing landscape and adopt to more digital strategies. Digital marketing team ensures that the brand has a strong digital presence. This involves promoting the brand on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, twitter, LinkedIn etc. This profile also involves ensuring that the customers of the brand are able to search for the brand and reach out to the brand in a convenient manner (Ryan, 2016). Search engine optimization and search engine marketing are tools that are essentially required in the business today to ensure a strong presence on digital platforms. The digital marketing expert of the firm will also make sure that the firm has excellent social listening skills. This would lead to increased brand loyalty and positive brand image establishment. Most of the customer queries reach out to businesses via social media platforms like twitter and Facebook. It becomes the responsibility of the digital market analyst to make sure that these forums are handled well in order to build and maintain an impeccable public brand image.
There are various specialized course which are available both online and offline that help individuals to learn the art of digital marketing and social media marketing. These are extremely prevalent now owing to the increasing demand of digital media graduates.
- Human resource management: Human resource management is a pillar department of any organization whose first aim is to ensure that the employees in the organization are effectively hired. It is also the role of the human resource manager that the employees are adjusting to the organizational culture and competently performing (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). The measure and better the performance of each individual is the role of the human resource department of the firm. They must also make sure that employee grievances are handled effectively and that all the employees are fairly compensated. The role of human resource department within an organization is very vast. Even after recruiting an employee there are various issues that the HR manager must keep in mind.
The HR manager must effectively ensure that the organizational culture is maintained and there is transparent flow of information within the firm (Beardwell & Thompson, 2014). After completing a certain amount of time in the organization, it is crucial that employees’ jobs are enriched and enlarged and that they are fairly promoted to senior position. These decisions are made by the human resource manager of the firm.
If an employee leaves the organization then conducting exit interviews and ensuring a successful venture ahead for the employee is also one of the important and critical tasks achieved by the HRM (Sparrow, Brewster and Chung 2016).
HRM manager requires excellent communication and interpersonal skills which is imperative to build and maintain relationships with everyone in the organization. The HR manager must be polite, stern yet humble. The job requires immense patience and problem solving ability.
Conclusion
A professional skills portfolio is what defines the employee in the most efficient manner. It is a snapshot of the skills that the employee possesses and the skills that he or she aspires to attain. The report consists of my professional skills portfolio, my long term goals and the dream company that I wish to work with. I have elaborated upon my career goals and this activity has helped me gain a deeper insight of my strengths and weaknesses.
References
Agnihotri, R., Dingus, R., Hu, M. Y., & Krush, M. T. 2016. Social media: Influencing customer satisfaction in B2B sales. Industrial Marketing Management, 53, 172-180.
Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. 2014. Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Arnold, E. C., & Boggs, K. U. 2015. Interpersonal Relationships-E-Book: Professional Communication Skills for Nurses. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Arocha, J. B. 2017. Getting to the Core: A Case Study on the Company Culture of Apple Inc.
Beardwell, J., & Thompson, A. 2014. Human resource management: a contemporary approach. Pearson Education.
Bowman, J. S., West, J. P., Berman, M., & Van Wart, M. 2016. The professional edge: Competencies in public service. Routledge.
Bregaj, N., Gibson, E. C., & Pessey, J. 2014. Technological Innovation: Comparison of Two US Companies Apple Inc. and Google.
Cenere, P., Gill, R., Lawson, C., & Lewis, M. 2015. Communication Skills for Business Professionals 7. Cambridge University Press.
Chaffey, D., & Ellis-Chadwick, F. 2016. Digital marketing. Pearson.
Dawson, M. 2013. Graduate Voice: My Personal Employability Skills Portfolio.
De Bono, E. 2015. Serious creativity: How to be creative under pressure and turn ideas into action. Random House.
Grant, R. M. 2016. Contemporary Strategy Analysis Text Only. John Wiley & Sons.
Kohonen, V., Jaatinen, R., Kaikkonen, P., & Lehtovaara, J. 2014. Experiential learning in foreign language education. Routledge.
Lyons, T. S., Rogoff, E. G., Dean, M., & Marks, S. 2014. How Entrepreneurship Service Organizations Can Better Serve Immigrant Entrepreneurs. In ICSB World Conference Proceedings (p. 1). International Council for Small Business (ICSB).
Rao, B. R. 2013. U.S. Patent Application No. 14/107,693.
Ryan, D. 2016. Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation. Kogan Page Publishers.
Sparrow, P., Brewster, C., & Chung, C. 2016. Globalizing human resource management. Routledge.
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