Semester 2 week 3

This session was very useful as it involved interviewing, sampling methods and analysis. There was unstructured interviews conducted in my research project and all the credit goes to this session as I gathered all the skills required for the interview from this session.
The session covered effective ways to conduct structured and unstructured interview, and how to gather information in interviews. Being presentable, serious minded but good humour, self disciplined, a good listener, patient and persistent, empathetic, tolerant and understanding are all characteristics of a good interviewer. With all this characteristics in mind the interview for my research project was a success.
The sampling method can be very challenging, the topic of my research project was investigating staff turnover so I used the Judgment sample method (Non- probability sampling), I needed to collect information from ex-employees so I choose staff members who left the organisation and still in contact with them.

Analysis of data involves using methods that helps to describe facts, detect patterns, develop explanations and test hypotheses (Levine 1976) and this session give me in-depth understanding to analysing data.

Semester 2 Week 2

This session was about primary research, it covered designing of questionnaires,different approaches to research, application of the different techniques in data collection.
I had basic knowledge in conducting research but this session broaden my knowledge in conducting primary research which helped me a lot in designing the questionnaires for my research project.
I designed the quesitionnaires to collect employee’s personal information, tenure in the organization, employee loyalty, motivation and satisfaction. The questionnaire also allowed employees to evaluate their level of importance, relationship with their supervisors or managers and causes of dissatisfaction.
The questionnaire enabled me identify the key themes which was very helpful to my research project.

Semester 2 Week 1

This session was all about Literature reviews, we compared, contrast, judged and analysed several literature reviews in this session. The purpose of a literature review is to describe the work that has been reported on a subject or field. In this session I understood that a literature review goes beyond the search for information and includes the identification and articulation of relationships between the literature and your field of research.
We critically analysed various literature reviews  in a view to improve our critical analysis and to understand the whole concept. 
At the end of the session, I identified that the purpose of literature review is not only to describe a secondary data. It demonstrates an individual’s ability to identify the significant information and sketch existing knowledge. It helps fill in the gap in the research that the work will address, and generates rationale or justification for the study. In other words the main purpose of a literature review is to demonstrate the scholarly capacity, identify information, and outline the presented knowledge (Marchi 2009).

This activity helped me deal with many difficulties I encountered during my research project and this has really helped me developed my research skills.

Common Career Competencies

This was our final session and we looked at the common competencies in our various career paths.

We identified the common competencies, skills,and experience, personality and attitudes required in our future careers. My career path being Human resource management, after going through various job advertisement I identified some common competence among the best three jobs that I considered. This common competencies can be seen in my online portfolio.

We also mentioned the skills, experience, personality and attitude and qualifications required, which can all be seen in my online portfolio.

OUR CAREER PATH CHOICE (Session 5)

This is when we begin to research into our career pathway, we need to use various sources to research the career path that we may choose. The research will be based on jobs in the following sectors, Human resource management, Marketing, Finance and Management.

We need to research job advertisement in our chosen path, which in my case will be Human Resource Management.

Knowing my career path already, I used the following website http://hr-jobs.peoplemanagement.co.uk/jobs/ and http://www.personneltoday.com/Home/, in doing my research. I focused more on the job description and the person specification in each job advertisement. This is when the hard work began and after going through several HR jobs advertisement I was able to identify the education and attainment, experience and skills, and competences required. I also gain more knowledge on human resource management industry as a whole, their various roles, areas and their job description.

 

This gives me a broader knowledge on my chosen career path, how to work towards meeting the requirements and  what employers are offering to successful candidates.

THE 10 CORE COMPETENCES (Session 4)

In this session we evaluated the 10 key competences, these competences are Personal management, communication, managing information, research and analysis, project, task and organizational skills, team work, commitment to quality, professional behaviour, social responsibility and continuous learning.

These competences are key elements that employers look out for when recruiting, it is very important to demonstrate these competences during interviews. The video below explains briefly what competencies are.

 

 

Using the competencies discussed in today's session will benefit every student. I identified the meaning and ways to develop these skills effectively during this session. A personal management skill, according to an author refers to the ability of oneself to exercise control over one’s attitude, behaviour and motivation (Simon Oates, Management-Expert.co.uk). Examples of personal management skills include: Self-Discipline, Motivation, Time Management, Emotional Stability, Strategic Thinking, Analytical Mind, Intelligence, and Ethics.

Communication skills; this is when a broad range of communication styles is being used and choosing the appropriate, effective ways to communicate to different audiences in diverse situations. Managing information is the practice of critical thinking, organizing, storing, and sharing vital information, so that everyone can benefit from its use.

The following link explains in detail the other competences http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_94.htm

SWAIN ANALYSIS CONTINUED(Session 3)

Today's session is a continuation of last week's session, we completed the swain analysis, and we discussed several ways of identifying our strenths and how we can improve on our weaknesses. At the end of the session I learnt the distinction between strengths and weaknesses and why it is important to focus on strengths and not to allow our weakness hold us back. I also discovered how to manage and work around my weaknesses when focusing on my strengths. 

We also discussed our aspirations,interest and needs, we sometimes doubt what to do or whether or not there will be uncertainties. This is one reason why knowing your SWAIN is very useful.
Knowing your aspirations, interest and needs puts you in the right direction when it comes to choosing a course, career, partner, etc. It is also important to note that one course or one career do not suit everyone so knowing all this factors will help us choose what suits us best.