Managing and Developing Careers
Assignment overview
This employability portfolio is designed to direct you to:
• Research and reflect on your future employability and career development (see Module 3 for how you can reflect on your employability).
• Examine the usefulness of one ’Graduate identity’ strand for your future career. You must use one of the four ’Graduate identity’ strands in Hinchcliffe and Jolly (2011) in Module 2.
• Construct a SMART goal and part of a Personal Development Plan. Students must use the SMART goal and Personal Development Plan format in Gallagher (2010) in Module 5.
This assignment supports learning outcomes 1, 2, 4 and 5.
1. Identify the skills and attributes that enhance employability and career progression
2. Develop strategies and techniques for identifying and managing employability networks
3. Identify areas for further career development and put in place their own personal development plan
4. Research and reflect on opportunities for individual employability through the creation of a portfolio of achievement.
Assignment details
You are required to submit a 1500-word employability portfolio, plus appendices and artefacts (not included in word count). Well- constructed sentences and paragraphs are required. Headings that
indicate each of the numbered sections in the employability portfolio are expected. Please write in the third person. So instead of saying ’I’, you can say ’the student’ or ’the graduate’ or something similar. You will be required to complete the following steps:
Step 1
Select a specific role that you would feel qualified to pursue when you complete your degree.
Step 2
Research and outline the following aspects of this graduate role:
a) Expected task requirements and responsibilities as described in the advertisement of the role that you feel you would be qualified for when you complete your degree.
b) Describe the knowledge, skills and abilities that are required for the role and then classify these as ‘Graduate Employability Skills’. (Graduate Careers Australia, 2015, p. 21).
Step 3
Place this research material, set out in table format, in an appendix (at the end of your employability portfolio). At the front of your portfolio, provide an introduction to your employability portfolio of 100 words and a 200-word summary of the research material in your appendix.
Step 4
Select one of the ’Constructing graduate identity’ strands of values, intellect, performance or engagement (see Hinchcliffe and Jolly, 2011, in Module 2). How would you demonstrate to a prospective graduate employer your level of proficiency in this strand? Provide examples of how you are proficient. In what areas are you not proficient? (300 words).
Step 5
Based upon the assessment in Step 4, critique the usefulness of the strand you have selected from Hinchcliffe and Jolly’s (2011) ’Constructing graduate identity’, in terms of its ability to enhance your employability for when you graduate (300 words).
Step 6
Construct part of a personal development plan. This plan should consider the development you feel is required for you to achieve proficiency in the Graduate Employability Skills, as described in Step 2, for your graduate role. Select one goal from this development plan and write it as a SMART goal, then construct this into a personal development plan using the format provided in Gallagher (2010, p. 51) from Module 5. Place this in the appendix. Provide an explanation in the body of how this SMART goal is relevant to your graduate employability, and describe how your
personal development plan will help you to achieve this goal (300 words total).
Step 7
Create a conclusion that provides a synthesis of arguments and ideas relating to the key aspects of your future employability and career development as discussed (300 words). In researching for this employability portfolio, you are encouraged to use a number of techniques. One of these techniques can be a face-to-face interview with a person currently performing the job that you would like to do. If you use this technique, permission must be sought from the interviewee and their identity must be disguised. Other techniques include conventional reviewing of relevant printed or electronic academic sources.
