Career Development

Developing Professional and Employability Skills

By: Mohammad Ali Faridifar
Introduction
This report will reflect on my educational and career choices in future. The first part will summarise my educational and career choices. The second part will evaluate my educational choices with reference to career theories such as, John Holland’s Theory. The final part will consider the skills that will be required for obtaining a career in marketing, and identify the ways to advance my career.
I have worked in various sectors including; banking, retail and sales; property and construction; recruitment and HR, food and agriculture; marketing and advertising; and business, consulting and management. My previous work experiences and educational choices have enabled me to explore a number of career options mainly, marketing. Additionally, I am finding my undergraduate course in Business and Marketing very beneficial because it has motivated me to pursue a career in marketing and advertising. Having studies understanding and promoting a business module, I have discovered that I am interested in presenting business advertising ideas as my professional career. My career aim is to work for JCDecaux that is the only pure-play outdoor media owner worldwide. It delivers high quality and innovative solutions. I would like to get involved in JCDecaux as an advertising producer that will involves developing advertisements in commercial and other forms of marketing for different clients and companies (JCDecaux, 2014).
Moreover, my educational choices have provided me with an opportunity to develop the skills that are essential for my career path. On the one hand, my current degree course has enabled me to learn and strengthen my broader personal and professional skills, as well as enhancing my career prospect. On the other hand, my previous undergraduate degree in Computer Systems Engineering was not the right educational choice for me because I found the course contents irrelevant to my career objectives in future. Therefore, I was not enthusiastic to continue with that course and I decided to choose a career as a banker. It is clear that Holland’s Theory of Vocational Types (Holland, 2014) is the most relevance in explaining my career choice to date. This theory views personality types as major influences in career choice development. From the six Holland Types, I have found out that my personality type is enterprising. My educational choice reflects this personality type because I have the skills which have been demonstrated in this personality type for example, verbally skilled, leader and ambitious.
Besides, Holland theory suggests that different personality types can work within specific work environment. For instance, an enterprising personality type is most compatible within an enterprising work environment, and it is also compatible in conventional and social work environments. I find this approach more relevant to me rather than Super’s Development Self-Concept Theory or Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory. Thus, by having an enterprising personality type, I found out that the reason for not being compatible in my previous work place was because my personality type did not match the investigative environment. I tended to avoid activities that required careful observation, scientific and analytical thinking. However, currently I am working in a social work environment in which I find myself very compatible, and capable of leading a team in assigned projects.
In terms of professional and skills development, marketing is an increasingly competitive sector and it requires specific skills therefore, my degree in market is particularly useful to obtain a career in this field because it can be beneficial in helping me to secure a marketing position. For example, communication and interpersonal skills; analytical and investigating skills; creativity; working under pressure; oral and written skills;