Introduction

Starting a career might not be that difficult for some people, but I have always been worrying about it. This is my second year of study; this means that I am getting closer to the real professional world, so it will help me focus on my strengths to achieve future goals. MM256 Management skills are a great module that provides a basic understanding of how the employment process works. Most importantly, the material from this course is appropriate guidance that teaches where to start. This essay aims to discuss the application that supports students to get full-time job and internship and focus on students' professional development in the early stage of career.

Learning from MM256

 Through the module, I have learned that recruitment and selection are crucial for the company where employers hire a potential candidate for their company to achieve their long-term goal. So, it is important for a candidate in what ways he/she can attract recruiter to get the desired position in their company. A good candidate prepares questions before the interview, practice it in front of the mirror to maintain an eyes contact with a recruiter, clearly describe plans, stay focused, stay confident while talking with the interviewer or properly dress up, professional greeting because the first impression counts a lot, so the candidate must follow some ethics that help in achieving long and short term goal. Not by only attending seminars and lectures I have gained the academic knowledge but also learned a lot of information from people in the classroom. For instance, seeing my classmates applying in a very reputable company allows me to be more ambitious, dream higher, and encourage myself to be better. Moreover, I take advice from the tutors because they have more experience in the marketplace and explain in a wider perspective. As a student who hasn’t had a full-time job, I always look at the recruitment and selection process from the candidates' perspective so that I can improve my flaws in the interview time. This module leads me to think from employers' perspective and calculate costs of the process, profit, and benefit for the company like when company hire candidate externally then there are risks in money, time and other factors.

 To get useful help in the recruiting personnel, career development and employee appraisal, KSAOs explain the knowledge, skills, abilities and other attributes that are requisite in an organization for the desired vacancy (Wiles and Spiro, 2004). By using KSAOs candidate can easily analyze things in which they are excellent and how they can use those characteristics to get recruit by any well-known company. The module all teach me that what we do wrong in our CVs and cover letter that recruiter sees and rejected in the first phase, that's the major learning from this course that how a candidate makes its CVs and cover letter noticeable. The purpose of sending a cover letter with CV is to tell the organization how an applicant can be useful for them, give proper details of your skills and expertise, and most importantly write honestly about skills that candidates have already mentioned in their CVs (Uwizeyemungu et al., 2020). Some candidates write contradictory information in their CV, which opposes from the cover letter and gives the wrong impression to recruiter. There is no need to write heading as "Resume or CV" if a candidate is applying for any job, which means they are sending their resume (Tsai et al., 2011). Moreover, properly check grammatical mistakes in the CV and cover letter, and put a positive impression at the end of the letter. A candidate must keep their CV concise and start their experience with the most recent one. However, it is a big question for those who have no experience must add their academic experience throughout their university life. And candidates can also list down their achievement in bullet points and give your CV to any professional member who can give appropriate advice and tell errors in CV (Treadway et al., 2014).

Furthermore, AI is a machine that requires a lot of data that helps workers to screen resume as accurately as recruiters do. However, AI is a software vendor that reduces the unconscious biasness of ignoring information in recruitment processes such as race, age or gender. So there are three changes in recruiter role which a candidate can take advantage (Ten Rouwelaar et al., 2020). Firstly, as recruiters became proactive in the hiring process, candidates should also become proactive in finding jobs related to their field. Due to AI, recruiters spend more time with applicants to support the establishment in culture and build a relationship in person. Another thing that influences recruiter to hire is how a candidate represents in an interview. Sometimes, the interviewer can ask some harsh questions to check the temperament of the candidate and how does an applicant react towards it, so the candidate must know how to handle tricky questions in the interview (Talwar et al., 2020).

Target profession

 I believe that there are endless opportunities for individuals' professional growth as a rewarding workplace give a personally rewarding career. Individual's goals must be challenging and clear that must develop learning and knowledge, which helps a person succeed. Similarly, my target profession is to be an Accountant.

• Long term goal: plan I want to be an executive account manager for my family's company (Oil Distribution Company). It's either this or be a manager, executive assistants.
• Short term goal: I want to get a placement in accounting in the energy industry (Oil Industry to be specific) it would be best for me if I can get a full-time position or internship with a multi-international company like Shell or BP because I want to know how they manage their accounting in such a big company by gaining some experience in there will help me a lot to achieve my long term goal.

I can do job hunt by using some job search websites such as prospects.ac.uk, where people can find jobs related to their profession and get desired jobs in well-known companies. I like the accountant job because I'm good at mathematic and I have an interest in activities that are related to calculations. Accountants have to analyze and interpret the financial reports of the company so they must have skills of analytical, computer literacy, business acumen and good communication; these are the things which describe me. The basic role that an accountant must be responsible is that checking the truthfulness and accuracy of the financial document, whether their compliance is in line with the country's regulation and laws. I must make sure that taxes are paid on time and give guidance and advice to related departments on profit maximization, reduces expenses and increase income. The tools used by accountants to search industries and jobs are QuickBooks Online, JD Edwards Enterprise One and SAP ERP Core Finance.

Core competencies and strengths

A competency is described as the capabilities and abilities to do the job efficiently and successfully. It means how a person can apply their KASOs in their critical work functions (Schulze, 2018). However, Rotondo (2020) explained that strength is the condition or quality of being strong in particular thing physically and mentally. While, KASOs is the abbreviation of knowledge, ability, skills and other characteristics that helps people to learn the nature of changing in the workplace, needs or the business and technology that evolve around them. Therefore, KASOs is crucial for identifying the job analysis proper process (Raimee and Radzi, 2020). 

STAR Technique:

• Situation: I have been hired by the multinational firm of Oil Industry, in which I have to do quantitative research, and I was not confident about the statistics using over there.
• Tasks: I knew that I have to put all my energy and effort to analyze and understand the techniques used in quantitative research.
• Action: I do not know how to analyze data, so I just take a course through LinkedIn and improve my learning to gather data. Moreover, I take so much guidance from my friends, who help me learn from different perspectives. And also talk to my statistics teacher to guide me on this, and he gives me some of his material which helps me a lot in that task.
• Reflection: The reflection of my work tell me where I was weak, there is no doubt that I'm good at maths, but it reflects my work as I am not effective in Software proficiency.
• Results: I will gain experience and knowledge in excel it was nice to learn shortcuts and different tools by using Pivot tables, and it also teaches me how to do work in an effective way and in a short time.

There are things that must be adopted by an accountant so that they can develop in their job (Langer et al., 2020). With reference to the above example, an accountant should adopt technological changes quickly and proactive response to that (Obeng, 2020).

Action plan

 With the reference of my long term goal, I see myself after ten years working as an executive account manager in my family business. But for this, I have to gain and learn so much about accounting and its software before that. Keevy (2020) recommended that by increasing knowledge and experience in accountant job, I can improve my weakness and insufficiency in my work to expand my family business. Accountants must develop strong commercial skills so that firms will consider them. Jackson et al. (2020) explained the candidates who want jobs in the accounting department then must increase their knowledge in general IT and software related to accounting. Honesty is highly appreciated here because accountants involve money or financial activities, as they should always treat their clients with integrity and honesty. My proficiency in accounts software is not so good, and I am also not good at time management. Therefore, I will take different accounting courses at the University of Birmingham and learn through websites like prospects.ac.uk, and ascentsml.co.uk/courses, which are offering courses for accountants.

According to Ingold and Lange (2021) accountants must have a grip on different software like Microsoft Excel and other platform spreadsheets, it differentiates accountant from new hires because they have the ability to prepare to account effectively and accurately. It is essential for accountants to sharpen their understanding and knowledge about Securities and Exchange Commission reporting, public offering initial and GAAP. In the study of Goffin and Woycheshin (2006) elaborated that accountants have to work under various projects at the same time, so they need to be efficient in time management a complete the task before the deadline. Dluhopolskyi et al. (2020) expressed that to perform well in the interview, an accountant must improve their leadership skills, prepare for excels formulas, get ready to complete tasks that were given in an interview, they can ask you about how much you are capable of accounts software, interviewers can also ask process for accounting in business, and they evaluate you by asking critical situations to check your knowledge and analytical skills. The strategies an accountant use to develop their career and what steps should b taken by them to enhance their knowledge such as an accountant must set their priorities, explore more options that help you to learn more about accounting field, work hard on your short term goals, increase your skills by using different tools and techniques like QuickBooks Online and SAP ERP Core Finance, learn through professionals, and get more learning material about software in accounting.

Conclusions

The essay has summarized the learning of recruitment and selection by improving the understanding of the process and in what ways a candidate can impress a recruiter to hire them as a potential candidate. The results of this essay stated that the practice of conceptual and academic aspects would help and support students to develop in their career. The learning from MM256 Management skills helps students to grow within their career and provide guidance to grow. It will broaden their knowledge and learning by allowing them to be active reflects on career development. It also declared that by using different platforms of accounting, candidates could attain massive knowledge in that field.