Assignment 1 - Career Action Plan

Learning Outcome Details
Unit Learning Outcome (ULO) Graduate Learning Outcome (GLO)
ULO 1: Develop a personal action plan within the context of 21st century career opportunities.
ULO 2: Demonstrate the professional communication of your readiness to engage in the business GLO 6: Self management including the critical self reflection on personal strengths, weaknesses, limitations, and identifying the gaps in knowledge and skills for a work ready situation

Description
You will be investigating intern or graduate job opportunities to determine the expectations of employers and the industry requirements. You will then reflect on your own skills, experiences and gaps in your knowledge and skills and how you will aim to meet those standards. You will produce a personal review and plan, using business formatting and language.
There are three required sections for the assignment, described below.
 
1. Research and select an internship (or similar) or your dream graduate role. Investigate the industry expectations of your selected position.

What skills and knowledge are expected? Consider presenting this in two parts:
a. Personal soft skills (e.g. teamwork, enthusiasm)
b. Job specific knowledge and skills (e.g. database management, customer service, bookkeeping, event management, social media campaign analysis)

Suitable methods for addressing this section and suggestions for suitable sources will be covered in seminars 1-2.

Suggested word count: 400 - 500 words

2. Review your current capabilities, discipline knowledge and areas where you are developing skills or knowledge.
a. Complete the assessment tools in Career Guru and the Chandler Macleod sites. Make sure you save or take a screen shot of the results. Prepare a list or diagram showing your key findings. Full copies of these will be presented in your appendices.

b. Review your experiences and identify relevant experiences and results that showcase your abilities. Note that you will have the opportunity in seminars to discuss these in groups, but suggestions may include community or volunteer activities, school leadership roles, sporting activities or casual work.

c. Review your academic performance to date. Are there any units where you have done well, shown specific abilities, or particularly enjoyed?

d. Discuss your key findings clearly demonstrating your strengths and areas for improvement.

In seminars 1-3 you will be introduced to a number of self-assessment tools and activities.
Suggested word count: 500 - 600 words

3. What skills, experience and knowledge do you need to develop?
a. Describe the skills and knowledge that you need to develop to meet industry standards.

b. Propose strategies for developing your skills and knowledge. These may include academic studies, selecting a relevant major, work experience opportunities, volunteering, etc.

c. Provide a timeline for the development of your skills and knowledge over the next 12 months.

Examples and suggestions will be covered in seminars 2-3 and in the group work covered in the seminars.
Suggested word count: 500 words 

Presentation and formatting
Word limit is 1500 ±10% words.

Use a clear font such as Times New Roman, Ariel, Calibri or Tahoma. Text font size should be 12 pt. Any tables or diagrams should be 10 pt.
Headings must be bold. Use headings effectively to show the reader how you have structured your work.

Use clear, precise language for all sections. Business writing requires the author to write for a business audience. Business audiences expect that you will introduce the topic, present all the key findings or information and then provide a clear result. The result may be a summary of your findings for Section 2 or conclusion at the end of this assignment.

Sections that are required:
• Title page
• Industry and Job Requirements
• My Capabilities
• My Action Plan
• Appendices: Include a copy of your job advert or listing (1 page); copies of information from industry bodies and/ or discipline information (max 2 pages); copies of your personal self-evaluations.
Students must correctly use the Harvard style of referencing and report format.

Submission Instructions
You will submit this work as a business report. A template is available on the unit site. Your work must be submitted as a word document or PDF.

You must keep a backup copy of every assignment you submit, until the marked assignment has been returned to you. In the unlikely event that one of your assignments is misplaced, you will need to submit a backup copy.

Any work you submit may be checked by electronic or other means for the purposes of detecting collusion and/or plagiarism.

When you are required to submit an assignment through your CloudDeakin unit site, you will receive an email to your Deakin email address confirming that it has been submitted. You should check that you can see your assignment in the Submissions view of the Assignment dropbox folder after upload, and check for, and keep, the email receipt for the submission.

Please note: when your submission is being marked, the assignment drop box will be hidden. You will not be able to view your submission during this time.

Can I recycle my own work?

Deakin students are not permitted to recycle their assessment work, or parts of assessment work, without the approval of the unit chair of their current unit. This includes work submitted for assessment at another academic institution. If students wish to reuse or extend parts of previously submitted work, then they should discuss this with the unit chair prior to the submission date.

Depending on the nature of the task, the unit chair may permit or decline the request.

Building evidence of your experiences, skills and knowledge
Building a portfolio that evidences your skills, knowledge and experience will provide you with a valuable tool to help you prepare for interviews and to showcase to potential employers. There are a number of tools that you can use to build a portfolio. You are provided with cloud space through OneDrive, or through the Portfolio tool in the Cloud Unit Site, but you can use any storage repository system that you like.

Remember that a Portfolio is YOUR tool. You should be able to store your assessment work, reflections, achievements and artefacts in YOUR Portfolio. Once you have completed this assessment piece, add it to your personal Portfolio to use and showcase your learning later, when applying for jobs, or further studies. Curate your work by adding meaningful tags to your artefacts that describe what the artefact represents.