ACC 4997 P14004391

1.0 Introduction

Nowadays, majority of people will work with a variety of employers and move
across different employment sectors through their working life. Employability skills are
essential for employees to own it. Hence, every employee needs to own a set of
employability skills. Those skills are not just specific to one career path but is useful
across all employment sectors. Employers are looking for skills that go beyond
qualifications and experiences. Education and experience may make employee
qualified to apply for a job but to be succeed in most roles, employees will require skills
that they are probably going to develop after some time. Every employee needs to
identify their own strengths and weaknesses to have better understanding of their selves
and how they function it.

Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the

transformation of experience (Kolb, 1984). The experiential learning style theory is
representing a four-stage learning cycle. First stage, concrete experience which a new
experience or situation is encountered. Second stage, reflective observation of the new
experience which is importance are any inconsistencies between experience and
understanding. Followed by abstract conceptualization which is the person has learned
from their experience. Last stage, active experimentation which the learner applies their
ideas to the world around them to see what happens. In the picture shows the four steps
are important and linked, lack of any one will let learners could not get effective
learning.

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This assignment has been prepared as a self-reflection on my career choice.

SWOT analysis, Personal Development Plan (PDP), Gap analysis and the knowledge
of mission and objectives for selected organisation and Occupational Safety & Health
Act (OSHA) are also included. SWOT analysis and PDP helping me to identify my
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and improving through conscious
habits and activities.

With my qualification, I want to become an accounting executive of a company.

The position in account department needs hard skills and soft skills to meet the job
requirement and job description. The first job that I have found from Jobstreet is to
work as an accounting executive at Tan Chong Group (Appendix 1) and the second job
is to work as an accounting executive at Kuchen Industries Sdn Bhd (Appendix 2). By
comparing the skills required by accounting executive between my current skills, a
spider-gram (Appendix 3) has been developed to show the gap. I have also listed my
gap analysis between the requirement of the accounting industry and my current
capabilities.

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2.0 SWOT Analysis

Table 1: Personal SWOT Analysis.

A SWOT analysis is the analysis of to evaluate past, present and future position
of an organisations or an individual in pursuit of their career goals by looking at
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (Martin, 2018). This professional tool
can assist in better understanding on how to play with strengths and manage weaknesses,
as well as uncover opportunities for growth and eliminate threats.

I have developed a personal SWOT analysis, and it helps me learn more about
myself. The potential areas that need to be further enhance and improve is my
weaknesses. Improving weaknesses helps to acquire a learning experience from every
situation (VanBellinghen, 2017). At the same time, I can learn from the experience and
further enhance my strength. If I do not make improvement in this area, it might be

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affecting my future career success and cause the skill gap between the industry and
myself.

3.0 Skill Requirement and Gaps between current skills

Self-management skill

Self-management are the skills that we could control our, emotions, feelings and
activities (Acharyya, 2017). It is crucial in the workplace because they can help you
contribute to a better working environment. Developed a good self-management skill
will help you in time management and stress management (Linman, 2012). In college
life, there are a lot of assignments that are need be done on time. I have the ability to
manage my time and pass up every assignment on time. Because of the heavy workload
in college, I will do exercise regularly to cope with my stress. The job responsibilities
of account executive that I found are to perform accounts vouchers and to ensure proper
and accurate month-end closing within the deadline. The pre-work experience and
volunteer work in various environments that I have done before and have successfully
taken on responsibilities and finished to them to a high standard on every moment.

Team Player

When workers combine their individual skills to achieve a goal in a workplace, they
perform teamwork (Mckinney, 2017). The better you work together with others, the
more successful your team will achieve their goals. Having a good team-working skill
gives you more chances to move forward in your career. Besides, I prefer teamwork.
Collaboration help to teach more about myself and my own strengths and weaknesses.
Different team members come up with different ideas, perspectives and the synergy
between team members can produce productive and creative results. The job that I wish
to apply after my graduate required their employee to be a team-player. One of my
strength is I get along well with others. I could compromise, listen the needs and show
respect to others.

Problem-solving skill

At every level of every career, problems often occur. For this reason, the ability to solve
problems is great importance to individuals and organizations. It involves being able to
identify and define the problem, generating alternative solutions, evaluating and
selecting the best alternative, and implementing the selected solution (CareerBuilder,

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2017). I seldom solve the conflicts that often happen in a group discussion in my college
life as I always follow instruction of my team leader. The requirement for problem-
solving skills is part of account executive by mining data and analysing trends. It is
important for accountants in practice to correctly identify, analyse and solve problems.
I am a person who more to following instructions, and I am week in finding ways to
solve problems. Therefore, problem solving skill is one of my skill gaps.

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is an awareness of the self, with the self-being monitoring our inner
worlds, thoughts, emotions, and beliefs (Davis, 2019). High self-awareness is a reliable
predictor of success in life, perhaps because a self-aware person knows when
opportunities are right for them and how to make an appropriate business work well.
When you are self-aware, you know your strengths and weaknesses and how to manage
them in workplace (Nuckolls, 2018). With strong self-awareness, I can control my
emotion well which lead me to make friends easily. I believe that I can easily adapt to
new environment. Besides, I am a reliable person because I do things on time and my
colleagues can count on me and expect me to do something.

Communication skill

Communication skills refer to abilities to provide and receive different kinds of

information (Maguire, 2002). Communication in the workplace is crucial to
organizations because it gives organizations to operate effectively and be productive.
Workers can experience an increase in productivity, commitment and morale if they
can communicate up and down the communication chain in an organization (Lombardo,
2017). Public speaking class that offered in my college have successful help me to get
more comfortable when having presentation in front of everybody. I can also
communicate well with my team-member when having group assignment.
Communication skill is important in every department. In accounting department,
important financial tasks such as budget preparation and reporting, bill paying, payroll
and recording income need to be presented properly to management and others to be
useful and meaningful. I believe that I can communicate well with my colleagues to
avoid any misunderstanding when performing accounting tasks.

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Technical Appreciation

The workplace’s culture is influencing by the technology. The usage of online

conferencing, computer skills, presentation of software are referring to technology
appreciation skills. Nowadays, technology appreciation is very important to every
employee in company. Updated information can be obtained through online research
which require technology appreciation to achieve (Turner, 2015). In accounting
apartment, there are UBS accounting software and MS office that helps to perform daily
tasks. In my previous part-time job, I am a book keeper in a small company. I am able
to use computer skill such as MS office to perform my work. With my chosen industry,
they prefer employees with IT skills such as accounting software and MS office.
Although I have skilled in MS office, but I am not familiar with accounting software. I
will need to learn it after I work as an accounting executive in the company.

Enterprising

The definition of enterprising is “having or showing initiative and resourcefulness”. It

is all about being able generating ideas, seizing opportunities, learning from mistakes
and seeking funding (Bridgewater, 2017). Individual which graduates with having
strong enterprising skills can identify opportunities and leverage their initiative and a
proactive approach to make the most of it. One of the core competencies of the
accounting department is improving the internal control program of an organization to
managing and reduce risk. I am able to do most things well. I believe that I can take up
responsibility to manage all aspect of accounting function such as ensuring proper
maintenance of accounting transaction and undertake special assignment or project that
may assigned by the company from time to time.

Business Judgement

Business judgement is a skill that having the ability to make considered and effective
decisions and form objective opinions especially in matters that affect action on any
business activities (Bainbridge, 2003). The ability to make effective decisions can be a
good leadership skill that earns favour with employers and can help you gain
promotions. Maintaining a healthy level of confidence at the right moment can
strengthen your workplace and reduce your long-term stress. The important skill that
require to be a part in accounting department is business judgement. Business
judgement can help to make decisions and analysis data to provide management the

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accurate data regarding the financial position of the business such as liabilities and
assets, costs and earnings and profit and loss. Although I have studied the account
knowledge in my college, but I do not have any work experience on accounting
department, so this will be my skill gap.

Business Awareness

Business awareness refer to the ability to know what makes an organization or business
successful by either buying or selling products or providing services to a market. An
individual who having business awareness has developed a deep understanding of their
industry and the marketplace in which it operates (Hadi, 2015). This awareness not only
enhances their overall performance; it enables them to recognize the different trends
(politics and economics). This will affect how they work and make decisions. An
accountant is responsible for running the accounting and financial activities of a
company. Every employee needs to know what their role is and understand the business
environment. Due to I rarely read newspaper, my knowledge to business environment
is very little. Knowing the market place in which a business or service operates and an
understanding of what makes a business successful is a key requirement in
most occupations. Therefore, business awareness is my current limitation in my
employment.

4.0 Personal Development Plan

Focusing on PDP improve the qualities employee hold within them and makes
goals and aspirations turn into a reality (Tucker, et al., 2011). A personal development
plan shows a starting point and how to get there, with specifics. To achieve the position
of accounting executive, I had conducted a personal development plan (PDP) to better
equipped in identifying my personal goals and work toward them. My short-term goal
is to develop and improve my hard and soft skills in this 2 year. I will further enhance
my strength and at the mean time find the ways to improve my weaknesses.

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What are my What activities do I need to How will I measure my Target date for achieving
development undertake to achieve my success? my objectives
objectives? objectives?
Problem-solving 1. List the possible  Have the abilities, August 2019 – June 2020
skills solutions and including researching
evaluate the skills to look for
solutions. solution when facing
2. Finding out what problems.
caused the problem
and conduct
research on it.
Technology 1. Look for relevance  Skilled in IT August 2019 – June 2020
Appreciation IT class. technology.
2. Search for IT
information.
3. Always practice in
operating the
software.
Business Awareness 1. Read news to  Staying up-to-date on January 2020 – January
understand the daily happenings and 2021
economic developments in the
environment and business
changes in society. and commercial world.
2. Read the annual
report of my
company to
understand more
about my company.
Business Judgement 1. Follow colleagues or  Have the ability to January 2020 – January
superior for business make business 2021
talk. decisions without any
2. Do research for any helps.
relevance business
knowledge or
information.

Table 2: Personal Development Plan (PDP)

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5.0 Essential Knowledge in The Workplace

Professionalism refer to the polite behaviour, skill and good judgement which
is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well (Collier, 2012). A person’s
character can be derived from their work ethic. Strong work ethics shows that the person
places a high value on doing a good job, respecting others and operating with integrity
(Scott, 2019). Types of professionalism and ethics that I learned from my college is
critical thinking and business law. Critical thinking plays an important role in ethics
because it is the process by which we decide whether something is right or wrong (Ennis,
2011). By incorporating a critical thinking process into my mindset, it helps me to more
effectively make decisions based upon truths and verifies information, rather than
unknowns and variables. Besides, it is important to have a basic understanding of
business law to help in making better decisions in business field. There is a huge body
of law that applies to business. Businesses need these laws for the same reasons that
people do: to define unacceptable behaviour, to provide certainty and stability, to
protect the public, and to provide a mechanism for businesses to resolve disputes (Gabel,
2005). It is a great opportunity to having this professionalism as I can help my company
with my business law knowledge.

Besides, maintaining professionalism and ethics, knowing the organization’s

mission and objective is also crucial for the reason of receiving jobs. Without mission
and objectives to help in develop a strategy, the organization cannot identify,
differentiate or explain itself to employees and customers. The organization’s mission
statement outlines the company’s business, goals and strategies to achieve them
(Hofstrand, 2016). Tan Chong’s mission is to be leveraging on its brand name and
industry experience, venturing abroad both regionally and overseas while leveraging
on its assets growth. And their objectives are to be one of the leading and most admired
organizations in its chosen industries and markets, creating sustainable value for the
key stakeholders. Besides, Kuchen Kitchen’s mission is be clear, strong and consistent
communication at all levels is important for Kuchen to enjoy successful and enduring
relationships with our partner’s and clients. And the main goal is to offer affordable,
individually planned and manufactured kitchens. I could contribute and improve their
mission with my communication skills. As I can be a good presenter to present how

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good is my company for customers and communicate well with colleagues to avoid
misunderstanding and conflict between the management.

According to Department of Occupational Safety and Health, in Malaysia,

Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) 1994 or Act 514 provides the legislative
framework for the safety, health and welfare among all Malaysian workforces. OSHA
origin from US. The U.S. Congress created OSHA under the Occupational Safety and
Health Act of 1970 (the OSH Act). To protect and prevent the workers against hazards
and its risks in connection with their activities at work is the principle of OSHA
(UTM,2014). Some company are implementing safety and health program for their
employees. I had attended the OSHA talk which held in my college. It helps me gain a
knowledge regarding employees’ safety and health. After attended the talk, I have the
safety knowledge so when incident happen I know how to handle it. Besides, safety
signs are very important for a company for ensuring a safe workplace because the safety
signs provide the relevant information (Wastradowski, 2018). After entering my
company, I should know where the safety equipment’s and tools put and understand the
safety signs in my company. When incident happen, I can quickly find it and use it. The
company also must make sure employees have and use the safe equipment and tools
and properly maintain the equipment such as fire extinguish.

6.0 Conclusion

In conclusion, the nine skills that stated above are the hard and soft skills that
required in workplace. Based on my gap analysis, my skill gap is qualification, working
experience, problem-solving skill and accounting computerized system. Therefore, I
will follow what I had planned in PDP to achieve my personal goal. I will enhance my
strength continuously and at the mean time find the ways to improve my weaknesses.
Besides, essential knowledge in workplace can helps to achieve career goal. To
accomplish great things in life, we must keep learning. The great motivational speaker
Bob Proctor once said the key to his success was to never stop learning (D’Angelo,
2013).

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7.0 References

Acharyya, R., 2017. 7 Self Management Skills every Manager should have. [Online]
Available at: http://www.careerizma.com/blog/self-management-skills/
[Accessed 1 June 2019].

Ahmed, A., 2019. Importance of Mission Vision in Organizational Strategy. [Online]

Available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-mission-vision-organizational-
strategy-16000.html
[Accessed 2019].

Bainbridge, S. M., 2003. The Business Judgment Rule as Abstention Doctrine. UCLA, School of
Law, Law and Econ, pp. 1-53.

Bridgewater, 2017. Enterprise Skills: What Are They and Do You Have Them?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.bridgewateruk.com/2017/09/enterprise-skills/
[Accessed 3 June 2019].

CareerBuilder, 2017. What are problem-solving skills and why are they important?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.careerbuilder.com/advice/what-are-problemsolving-skills-and-
why-are-they-important
[Accessed 1 June 2019].

Collier, R., 2012. Professionalism: What is it?. CMAJ, 184(10), pp. 1129-1130.

D’Angelo, C., 2013. Keep Learning for Lifelong Success. [Online]

Available at: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-d/keep-learning-for-
lifelon_b_4002375.html

Davis, T., 2019. What Is Self-Awareness, and How Do You Get It?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/click-here-
happiness/201903/what-is-self-awareness-and-how-do-you-get-it
[Accessed 1 June 2019].

Ennis, R., 2011. Critical Thinking. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines , 2(26), pp. 5-
19.

Gabel, J., 2005. Editor’s Corner: Law and Ethics in the Business School. American Business
Law Journal, Volume 42, pp. 1-6.

Hadi, C., 2015. Entrepreneurship and Education: Creating Business Awareness for Students
in East Java Indonesia. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 177, pp. 459-463.

Hofstrand, D., 2016. Vision and Mission Statements -- a Roadmap of Where You Want to Go
and How to Get There. [Online]
Available at: https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/wholefarm/html/c5-09.html
[Accessed 1 June 2019].

Leonard, K., 2018. Professional & Ethical Behavior in the Workplace. [Online]
Available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/professional-ethical-behavior-workplace-
10026.html
[Accessed 1 June 2019].

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Linman, D., 2012. Self-Management Skills for Employees, or How to Be a Productive

Employee. [Online]
Available at: https://mymanagementguide.com/self-management-skills-for-employees-or-
how-to-be-a-productive-employee/
[Accessed 1 June 2019].

Lombardo, J., 2017. Workplace Communication: Importance, Strategies & Examples. [Online]
Available at: https://study.com/academy/lesson/workplace-communication-importance-
strategies-examples.html
[Accessed 5 June 2019].

Maguire, P., 2002. Key communication skills and how to acquire them. BMJ.

Martin, M., 2018. Conduct a Personal SWOT Analysis to Improve Your Career. [Online]
Available at: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5543-personal-swot-analysis.html
[Accessed 3 June 2019].

Mckinney, P., 2017. Teamwork Skills in the Workplace: Definition & Examples. [Online]
Available at: https://study.com/academy/lesson/teamwork-skills-in-the-workplace-
definition-examples-quiz.html
[Accessed 1 June 2019].

Nuckolls, K., 2018. The Value of Self-Awareness in the Workplace. [Online]

Available at: https://www.talentinsights.com/blog/value-self-awareness/
[Accessed 1 June 2019].

Pillay, H., 2014. Why it’s important to know your strengths and weaknesses. [Online]
Available at:
http://mystarjob.com/articles/story.aspx?file=/2014/3/22/mystarjob_careerguide/1454795
1&sec=mystarjob_careerguide

Scott, S., 2019. The Importance of Professionalism in Business. [Online]

Available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-professionalism-business-
2905.html
[Accessed 1 June 2019].

Tucker, F., Duncan, A. & Davis, L., 2011. Investing in yourself’: personal development
planning in practice. Planet, 20(1), pp. 10-13.

Turner, L., 2015. 20 Technology Skills Every Educator Should Have. [Online]
Available at: https://thejournal.com/articles/2005/06/01/20-technology-skills-every-
educator-should-have.aspx
[Accessed 4 June 2019].

VanBellinghen, S., 2017. Why is it important to improve a weakness?. [Online]

Available at: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-important-to-improve-a-weakness

Wastradowski, M., 2018. Five Ways to Meet OSHA Requirements for Safety Signage. [Online]
Available at: https://www.graphicproducts.com/articles/five-ways-to-meet-osha-
requirements-for-safety-signage/
[Accessed 1 June 2019].

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8.0 Appendix

Appendix 1: Account Executive in Tan Chong Group.

Source: www.jobstreet.com

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Appendix 2: Account Executive in Kuchen Industries Sdn Bhd

Source: www.jobstreet.com

Spider Gram of Current and Required Skills

Current Skill Level Required Skill Level

Self-management Skill
10
Business Awareness 8 Team Player
6
4
Business Judgement 2 Problem- Solving Skill
0

Enterprising Communication Skill

Technology Appreciation Self-awareness

Appendix 3: Spider Gram of Current and Required Skills.

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