Stuart Wright

RationaleI feel that my strengths and weaknesses have affected my work experience choices a great deal. They have made me decide to look at different options for a job at the end of university. I have decided to pick a variety of different options for my potential work experience so I will have a better idea of what path I want to go down for getting a job at the end of university.

At this point in time I haven’t got a big variety of work experience so I feel that by trying different areas I will improve my employability. My current strengths are that according to the graduate skills questionnaire I am loyal, according to the enterprise questionnaire I have good perseverance and according to the BBC questionnaire I am flexible to different people and situations. These are all very important skills for employability so I feel these skills are what I want to show the employers in my work based learning because I feel they are some main points that employers look for in employees.

I also currently have weaknesses that I feel employers would want to see improving to give me a job. The current weaknesses I have are according to the enterprise questionnaire is I am not particularly creative and from Lashleys questionnaire I am not an activist. These are important skills for employers because these skills could need to be used a lot in different jobs.

I have chosen a few different possible places for my work experience which I have had my strengths and weaknesses in mind. The possible places I have chosen are

1. to work for an outdoor paintball business called Armageddon2. to work for a leisure centre3. to work with a rugby club such as Leeds Carnegie

Knowing my strengths and weaknesses I have found that even though these are different they could all be good choices. The outdoor paintballing business will be good because there will be new people that I will have to control to make sure they stay safe. Also with it being outdoor I will have to be flexible to different situations but this work experience also offers me a chance to improve my weaknesses as well as improve my strengths by helping me improve my creativity. I could do this by creating new games and designing different obstacles that make the game more challenging.

Wit working in a leisure centre and rugby club I would like to oversee and get involved in all the different roles of the business. This will show me what strengths I need to work in managerial roles. I feel that with flexibility being one of my strengths is important for managerial roles because then I will be able to get more out of different people. I fell that I could improve my creativity as well because I could have to come up with different ways for making things run smother or better ways to advertise.

I feel that doing the different exercises to assess my strengths and weaknesses has made a big difference to the choices I will want to do my work experiences for. I feel that even though they are different choices they will help me build on my strengths and improve my weaknesses.