Career Essay Sample with Portfolio Tasks

Portfolio Task #1 - Who Is a Professional

A professional is a person who has passed through a lengthy specialized education in service orientation and abstract knowledge (Hurd, 1967). Through professionalism, professionals undergo extensive adult interaction process and understand the rules of conduct and learn how to become responsible and understand detailed principles for selection and recruitment.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

A leading attribute of a professional behavior is that a professional is loyal to the profession and not his or her bosses. A professional looks for his or her colleagues and peers for approval. A professional behavior also entails answering societal questions concerned with the good life. Hurd (1967) noted that the core duty of a professional is to convey the truth to social action. Professional behaviors also entail dealing with people more than things and being more concerned with public interest than self-interest. The professional attribute also involves following exceptional guiding principles. A professional appreciates and supports every person he works with and also practices proper etiquette and good manners. Moreover, he or she has high moral and ethical standards and practices honesty and fairness while dealing with customers, peers, colleagues and other members of the society.

Some of the major attributes of professional behavior entail a clear understanding of the complexity of the world, knowledge, and works that a professional does. A professional is a person who admits that he or she does not know something and brings experts from other fields to solve the current problem. Similarly, a professional continuously works at his or her personal development and growth. He never stops to study and endlessly seeks to grow in terms of knowledge and wisdom gained from constant study and reflection. Further, Hurd (1967) noted that a professional behavior entails guiding the layman in social planning. Through competence and training, a professional frequently engage in the social planning process. To become a professional, one must have a sense of history. A real professional neither lives in the past nor completely in the future but views the future as a critical component of the past and present experiences. Secondly, being a professional means being able to identify benefits of the emerging relationship patterns that emphasizes on interdependence instead of dependence, cooperation instead of isolation, as well as, the growing concentration of source of action as opposed to the past pattern of operating by oneself.

A professional is someone who incorporates a sense of history in his or her work and recognizes the importance of interdependence and relationships in the highly organized and densely populated work where he or she works. Moreover, a professional is someone who truly understands the intricacy of the world and the vast proliferation of knowledge. He admits that he or she cannot know everything and thus seeks help from experts in other fields. Moreover, a professional is someone who studies continuously and takes an active role in planning processes, offering succinct guidance to lay authorities on the alternatives and possibilities of every action.

Portfolio Task #2 - Project Manager's Soft Skills

Being an effective project manager requires numerous soft skills. First skill is time management. Prompt completion of work helps reduce wastage of money and resources. Reportedly, there is a direct relationship between time management and cost structure of any project (Gillard, 2009). The inability of a manager to complete tasks within the set deadline delays the commencement of the work and consequently affects the expenses and budgeting process. Therefore, managing time appropriately assists the manager to improve effectiveness in terms of allocating adequate resources and time for every task.

Resource management is another critical skill that directly relates to the effectiveness of a project manager. Principally, the project manager must ensure that resources are used appropriately in order to reduce costs. Moreover, resource management encompasses knowledge on different project management techniques and tactics that could play essential roles in bringing significant improvement in working of a given project developing resource management skills will assist the project manager to maintain the quality of raw materials. Moreover, it would allow the project manager to minimize wastage since the project manager is committed to controlling the usage of resources within a given project.

Communication skill is also necessary for project managers. Principally, effective communication is necessary for every project manager because when the employees working under him or her do not completely understand their task and how to achieve them, then the whole project is in danger. Besides, failure of a project manager to communicate effectively with the customers regarding the expected output may make the project to fail or become useless. Gillard (2009) argued that maintaining succinct communication channels with everyone are critical as it ensures effective communication across the organization, as well as, risks and changes to allow for prompt assessment of preparation. More importantly, effective communications enhance success rate irrespective of the geographic location of the teams. Therefore, to ensure proper communication, the project manager must use any form of communication such as phone, email, face to face conversation, as well as, other important channels of communication.

The major problems that project managers continue to grapple with are linked to the management of people. Therefore, for effective management of people, the project manager must have good leadership skills. An effective leader ensures that the business succeeds while a poor leader destroys even a well-developed plan. Besides leadership skills, the project manager must be a team builder. Team building as stated by Pant and Baroudi (2008) refers to the capability of a manager to constitute a team with a suitable combination of skills to ensure successful completion of a given project. Team building is important for every project manager because it boosts self-confidence and ensures that more responsibilities are accorded to a given person. Team building also encourages socialization among members of a team doing various deliverables for a shared goal. Besides resource management, effective project managers must be able to motivate the employees. Intuitively, the ability to motivate others is a key role of leadership that has become a useful skill for project managers. Everyone has unique factors that motivate him or her, and thus every project manager should understand those forces so as to maximize on that and influence the behaviors of the employees in a positive way. The project manager should also have good communication skill. Poor communication undermines the success of a project. Besides communication, a project manager should possess myriads of skills including conflict management, trust building, organization, and decision making.

Portfolio Task #3 - Refuse Letters

(Insert Name)

Androville' Foods Products

Manchester, 476875

13th December 2018

To

(Insert the name)

Manchester, 476875

Re: Apology for Unavailable Product

Dear Sir,

Hello, I write to inform you that the product you requested through our online shopping platform is unavailable. I am deeply sorry that we were unable to notify when you were submitting your request. We learned about the product unavailability much later from the supplier who stated that the item has run out of the stock and that he too did not notice it in advance. However, he has promised to avail the product as soon as possible. In meantime, we promise that we will keep one piece of product for you in case you will still be interested in buying it. I am attaching a special discount code this email. Kindly redeem it when submitting your next request with us. We have also refunded the amount paid for this product through the account you used while submitting your order. However, the remaining products you ordered will be delivered to your premise by the stated date.

I am deeply sorry for any inconvenience caused. Kindly feel free to reach us through phone or email in case you need still further clarification. We often strive to ensure that our clients are fully satisfied while shopping with us and even while using our products. Therefore, in case of any complaint or challenge, kindly do not hesitate to notify us. When we get any notification, we will respond to your concern as soon as possible.

We sincerely hope that you will forgive us for any inconvenience caused and you will continue shopping with us. Please accept our sincere apologies. Thank you

Sincerely,

(Sign)

(Name)

Part Two

Hello Alwyn, I am sorry for not sending you the cash you requested from me. As you are aware, I am the kind of person who often follows his words, including lending people money. However, I have not received the money I was expecting from today's sales and this has made it impossible for me to send the cash as promised. I plan to bail you out within two days or sooner. I really want to send you the money as quickly as possible because I do not want to create any challenge in your relationship due to this inability to help you when you need me most. I really treasure our friendship and therefore, I am really grateful for your candid understanding and for accepting my apology.

Regards,

(Insert name)

Portfolio Task #4 - Poster Analysis

The poster selected for analysis is number 20. This poster targets outstanding young university students who are interested in learning about different forms of graphic design. As such, the intended audience of the poster might include young university students who wish to view various Iranian graphic design scenes and possibly understand the design components and effects of such posters.

The immediate impact of this poster is the bright colors used. Intuitively, the colors used bring immediate impact to the poster because of their large size, the position at the center, and brightness. The pink image indicates that the poster focuses on passion and love while the darker pink indicates the fun nature of Iranian culture. On the contrary, the yellow color indicates happiness between young graphic designers. Further, it depicts that characters in the poster are lively and prefer forming relationships and sharing their design expertise.

The core message of the poster is the exciting landscape, compelling and experimental works of young Iranian designers who employ various colors to demonstrate a rich history of visual culture to audiences interested in understanding the design. Principally, the poster is designed to express the rich historical culture of Iran. The designer of this poster is trying to inform the audience about various practices that make the graphic designs in Iran unique and outstanding. Numerous colors used in the poster represent different races, clothes, foods, and other tangible cultural components that make Iran a unique country in the world.

Pink, yellow, and light blue colors not only make the poster pop but also add weight to attain balance within the poster. Further, the composition of the poster relies on the golden rectangle, which is aesthetically or visually pleasing. The title of the poster is written in the large mystical font in bold black capitals, and this makes it stand out against images in the background and other wordings in the poster. Although the photographs used are much smaller than the larger contrasting part, they are more salient in terms of composition. Intuitively, the impact and emphasis lie with the photographs. The bright color especially yellow is a symbol of happiness, draws attention to the rich cultural diversity of Iranian culture.