Task summary:
For this assignment, you will research a graduate-level career and create a focused development plan. Your plan should show how you intend to maximise your academic experience and build the skills, knowledge, and attributes needed to succeed in your chosen career.
Assignment instructions:
For this task, you must produce either a written portfolio (2000 words) or a narrated PowerPoint presentation (10 minutes).
Both formats must include Task A and Task B
Task A: Graduate Careers, Professional Skills, and You (LO1, LO3: 1000 words / 5 minutes)
One of the benefits of studying a degree is to be able to access graduate-level professional roles. The graduate jobs market is competitive. One way of giving yourself an advantage is to show how you have developed professional and digital skills that are needed for your career of choice. In this task you will research a career of choice and consider what you will do to over the course of your degree to develop these skills.
You are being asked to write an application for a graduate interview or answer interview questions via a narrated PowerPoint. The interviewer wants to know about you, your understanding of the role, and your suitability for the role.
Remember, you need to stand out from the crowd and the interviewer wants to know about you and your skills, knowledge and experience. Answers that lack detail (and so could apply to anyone) will not get you the job. Answers that are unique and can only apply to you, and tell the employer all about you, may get you the job! Employers also routinely use plagiarism and AI software to sift applications: any answers that have not been written by yourself as a human will be rejected.
First, choose a job of choice and research it using prospects.ac.uk – you need to know about the job before you can answer any interview questions about it.
Tell us the job title of the job you have chosen and provide a link to its page on the Prospects website in your reference list.
Then answer the following questions:
• Why do you want this job? (100 words/1 minute)
• Can you describe what a typical day in this role might look like? (100 words/1 minute)
• How well would the role fit with your personality and preferred lifestyle?
Consider factors such as working hours and pattern (100 words/1 minute)
• What do you think are two key professional skills that are essential for success in this role? (400 words/2 minutes)
• Can you describe one digital tool or technology that’s essential for this role? (300 words/1 minute)
Task B: Action Plan – Maximising Your Potential (LO2, LO4: 1000 words / 4 minutes)
In Task A you identified two professional skills and one digital skill that you would need to be able to do your chosen role. As these are graduate-level skills, you will need to focus on developing them throughout your degree. Them.
Create a detailed action plan that outlines the specific steps you will take to develop each of the identified skills. Address each skill individually, explaining how you intend to improve it and what resources/ strategies you will use.
Be sure to refer to some of the support available at university. Your action plan should reflect how you make use of these services to support your development.
This support might come from:
• Your degree module content (find out about your degree content)
• Careers support
• Academic support such as Academic Skills, Library workshops
• Informal opportunities to develop softer skills (for example, group projects, speaking in class)
It should be clear from your action plan that you have researched what the university offers in terms of support, and you are aware of how you can use this support to give you that competitive edge.
Supplementary Information
To help you prepare for the ‘mock interview’ (Task A) you can contact the Careers Team at Arden who will be able to support you with the following:
Video Interviewing with Graduates First – Practice Video Interviews for personalised feedback with GFI’s emotion recognition tool. Start with practicing most common interview types – Competency and Strength based interviews. If you are applying for specific roles within industries, choose from a wide variety of industry and firm specific interviews. Click on a button below to launch an assessment.
https://www.graduatesfirst.com/university–career–services/arden
Practice your Interview skills with ShortlistMe – Enhance your interview technique and build your confidence with our interview resources on ShortlistMe. https://go.shortlister.com/marketplace/ardenuni
Shortlist.me is a video interview preparation platform that allows you to practice interviews in a video format and receive feedback through AI (artificial intelligence) and self-reflection. You can access the platform 24 hours a day. https://go.shortlister.com/marketplace/ardenuni
Learning outcomes (LO)
By completing this assessment, you will have shown and be assessed on all four of the learning outcomes:
LO 1: Identify and explain a range of professional and digital skills that are required in a career area that relates to your degree choice.
LO 2: Evaluate own areas for development for future success.
LO 3: Demonstrate an awareness of educational and employability developmental opportunities relating to degree choice by planning for future employment.
LO 4: Graduate Attribute 3 Socially Intelligent and Proactively Inclusive. Team engagement is evidenced while experiencing different views of others, including an understanding of equality, diversity, and inclusion.
You will be graded based on how well you meet these learning outcomes. Your marker will use a rubric to grade your work, and you can find this on the “My Assessment” tab on the module iLearn page.
Guidelines and policies
You can find links to more useful information about the assignment and university policies below.
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Word/time limit policy |
Click here to view the Arden University word count/time limit policy |
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Referencing Please follow the referencing guidelines |
Click here for APA referencing guidelines
Click here for Harvard referencing guidelines
Click here for OSCOLA referencing guidelines
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Academic integrity and misconduct |
Click here to view Arden University’s policy on academic integrity and misconduct |
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Statement on use of artificial intelligence on assessment |
Click here to view Arden University’s statement on the use of artificial intelligence on assessment |
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Support information |
Click here to view guidance on how to apply for extenuating circumstances
Please click here for link to academic skills team support