Assignment 2 Template: Reflecting on Your Skills, Goals, and Accomplishments

PART 1: ABOUT ME

Answer the following questions to capture how you see yourself, in terms of values, aspirations, key qualities, goals, strengths, and areas of growth:

1) Find a quote or saying that captures your values, motivations, and aspirations and share it here.

Failure Will Never Overtake Me If My Determination To Succeed Is Strong Enough.” – Og Mandino

In my opinion, this is the best quote to live by because it captures my values, motivations, and aspirations. The quote reminds me that I have to develop an unwavering determination to accomplish what I aspire. Regardless of the challenges, I have to do that which I am passionate about.

2) Describe some of your main personal, academic, and professional goals.

My goals are:

Personally – I want to invest more time into relationships and friendships. To accomplish this, I will need to spend more time with family and friends by having dinner together whenever possible and by going out for picnics together.

Academically – I want to participate in class discussions and other scholastic acuities and events. With participation, I will enhance my talents and skill because it will allow me to learn from my peers. Consequently, I will have high academic achievements.

Professionally – I want to have a piece of expanded professional knowledge and training. After earning my degree, I want to enroll in various courses and attend training programs and workshops to get additional certificates. The certificates will serve as evidence for my knowledge and capabilities.

3) What are some of your strength areas? Think about the top 2–3 skills you would advertise about yourself, or consider what others come to you for advice about.

I am a good communicator. I am excellent in verbal and written communication because I can tailor my messages in a clear and conscience manner for my audience. I understand that for communication to be effective, one has to be a good listener, I listen and respect the views of other people.

I am competent in problem-solving. I can display the ability to take an analytical and logical approach to solve issues and problems. With my problem-solving skills, I approach problems from different angles to arrive at a solution.

4) What are some areas you would like to grow and improve in?

I would like to grow and improve in areas such as leadership and collaboration. I would like to develop leadership skills to help me, coach, motivate, and empower others to their best. Due to the complexity of projects at school and elsewhere, the ability to work in teams has grown importance. Thus, I would like to improve the ability to work and share knowledge with groups.

PART 2: ACCOMPLISHMENT STATEMENTS

Accomplishments don’t have to be as large as climbing the top of Mount Everest or starting your own company. We accomplish many things in our lives every day that have meaning. For example, perhaps you organized volunteers for your school’s food drive, or made an extremely profitable sale. Or, if you’re more advanced in your career, perhaps you’ve received a promotion or special recognition.

In this part of the assignment, you’ll identify two accomplishments from work, school, volunteering, or other activities. You’ll then practice communicating these in ways appropriate for a CV or résumé.

To begin, brainstorm accomplishments from your work, school, volunteering, or other activities. Click Accomplishment Categories for a list. After you’ve identified two accomplishments, write their story using the information below:

1) Think about each of your accomplishments in these terms:

Challenge	Situation, problem, or requirement.
Action	Specific actions you took to resolve or meet the challenge.
Result	The benefit created in specific and measurable terms. Be sure to tie results to the organization’s goals when possible.
Details	Clarifying details, such as numbers or percentages, to provide context (consider answering how many, how much, how long, or how often).

Consider the example below of someone with experience as a retail manager:

Challenge	An increase in customer complaints about the helpfulness of staff.
Action	Developed a new training program for staff, got approval from district manager, and once approved implemented it with a regular review process.
Result	After 3 months, customer complaints decreased.
Details	Previously, customer complaints averaged 4 per week. After 3 months, complaints averaged 1 or less per week.

2) Write two stories to practice using this format:

Challenge	Customer were disconnecting their calls after waiting on hold for too long.
Action	I put emphasis on this in team meeting, and reminded staff throughout the day of the importance of being available for our customers. I closely monitored the call volume and the availability of staff members to take calls to make sure anyone who was available to take calls was in the queue to receive them.
Result	Once extra attention was put on this metric, the number of calls being abandoned decreased.
Details	After increasing emphasis on answering customer phone calls, our abandoned calls went from 37% to only 8%.

Challenge	When completing inventory, we had less french fries than projected.
Action	Emphasized the importance of not overfilling orders of french fries and doing a random weight check every 20 orders to ensure staff was reminded often what the appropriate amount of fries was depending on the size ordered.
Result	Immediately, the inventory of french fries improved and the employees are able to accurately identify whether an order is overfilled.
Details	Inventory of french fries went from being off by 59%, to only 15%. An appropriate amount of overage is 10%, which I anticipate we’ll be able to achieve within a month.

3) Now, try writing your two accomplishment stories concisely for a résumé or CV:

Formula 1: Result + action + brief description including clarifying details.

Example: Decreased customer complaints from 3 per week to 1 or less per week by training staff and implementing a regular review process.

Formula 2: Action + brief description with clarifying details + results.

Example: Trained retail staff in customer-service techniques and implemented a regular review process, decreasing customer complaints from 3 per week to 1 or less per week.

Accomplishment 1 Story

The number of abandoned calls went from 37% to only 8% by putting an increased emphasis on promptly answering customer calls.

Accomplishment 2 Story

The amount of french fry wastage decreased from 59% to just 15% in two weeks’ time after completing a refresher training with staff and completing random weight checks of french fry orders.

PART 3: REFLECT ON YOUR EXPERIENCES

1) How has reflecting on your goals, strengths, areas of growth, and accomplishments been valuable for you?

In order to grow, you have to be very self-aware and reflective. Without reflecting on your past performance and capitalizing on your strengths, it’s very difficult to improve. It’s also important to acknowledge your accomplishments because it keeps you pushing for bigger and better things!

2) What are ways you can build in a regular practice of reflection?

I’m always involved with personal development and seek guidance and suggestions from my supervisors. Continuing these practices will help me to maintain a growth mindset and a upward trajectory.

3) In your current understanding of the 10 Skills, identify 1–2 skills that you believe have helped you reach the accomplishments listed in Part 2. Briefly explain how.

Communication is the most helpful skill for me. I have used my communication skills to build trusting relationships with my staff, and that helped get them on board when I suggest ways we can improve. It’s also very helpful to be able to effectively communicate that we need to improve without making anyone feel like I’m personally attacking them for doing something wrong.

4) After practicing writing your accomplishments in a CV or résumé-appropriate style, do you feel more confident in expressing your accomplishments to an employer? Briefly explain.

Yes, I feel more confident in my ability to be concise and detailed in explaining my accomplishments.