Graduate attributes are skills and attitudes that a student develops in their time at an institution such as university. In this post I am going to look at which attributes I consider myself to have and not have and what experiences I have to back them up.
Hard and Soft Skills: Graduate attributes are a mixture of hard and soft skills. Hard skills are those which are easily defined and are acquired through conventional methods and easily demonstrated. Examples of hard skills include: Treatments, a degree or other certificate and proficiency in another language.
Soft skills are more difficult to define and are more about emotional intelligence and awareness of yourself and your environment. Some examples of soft skills include teamwork, motivation, flexibility and communication.
This image shows the importance of self and social-awareness and how it can impact your abilities in the workplace.
Negotiation and Persuasion: I believe I possess this attribute as I have been in many working situations where I have had to negotiate solutions to problems with customers. Also, as a therapist there comes a certain level of negotiation within parts of the job such as retailing or upgrading and link selling treatments. In my previous job I was a sales assistant and I was required to deal with customers who wanted discounts from items and refunds when receipts were out of date for example. In these situations, if i wasn't able to contact my manager, I was required to negotiate the situations myself, such as offering an alternative to a refund or making them aware of some of the other offers that were available at the time. Having this job for fourteen months, I was able to improve in this area on many occasions.
Having only been a therapist for seven months I haven't yet gained the level of experience to enable me to retail after every treatment I carry out. This is party due to lack of confidence in my knowledge of the products and also feeling like I'm forcing the guest into buying something that they don't necessarily want; But this experience and confidence will come in time.
Assertiveness: My assertive skills are fairly strong for someone who has never been in any form of management role before. I believe that I have a naturally assertive personality and find it quite easy to lead a group of people to success, whether that be in a learning or working environment. My only experience in the working environment of assertiveness is when I was left in charge of the team on shop floor whilst my manager and supervisor were interviewing. This allowed me to develop my skills of working with other people in a leadership role and not being afraid to ask them to carry out tasks to keep everything running smoothly.
Communication: Communication can come in many forms, including verbal and electronic communication, such as emails for example. I believe that I am able to communicate in both professional and informal circumstances and that this ability has come from being involved in organising events and having to communicate with different teams of people made up of both students and teachers.
Emails sent to fellow students were more informal and casual than those sent to teachers due to the nature of the content; For example, I would be reminding students about rehearsals and meetings and would be discussing budgets and health and safety procedures with teachers and other faculty members.
My communication experiences at university include emailing the spa and lecturers for sickness, or communicating with the spa team regarding extra shifts or any other work related issues.
Networking: I have limited experiences with networking as I have only really started learning networking techniques since joining university. My current experiences include going to Professional Beauty North, The Buxton Spa and Wellness Conference and Industry Day. All of these experiences have involved talking to different professionals within the industry and learning about them and how they got into the positions they are in. This has allowed me to gain confidence and learn the best questions to ask to get the most valuable information. This will help me in the future when looking for jobs and placement in my following years as a student.
Commercial Awareness: I feel as though I could improve my commercial awareness a lot in the next few years as a university student because it can be very helpful when it comes to researching for my work. In order to improve my commercial awareness, I can sign up to spa magazines such as Spa Business, Professional Spa and Wellness and DaySpa. All of these magazines will help me to keep up to date with the latest treatments and business successes as well as helping me to learn more about the modules I will be studying by providing me with further information and other ways of looking at information that I already have.
Professional Development: Professional development is key when working on other graduate attributes because it helps you to become more self-aware and more confident. Without these skills, it would be difficult to enhance my contribution to the workplace and keep up-to-date with any changes. My professional development kick-started when I became a university student because I knew I had to develop myself both academically and personally in order to have a chance to go into my preferred line of work. This module is all about evaluating my professional development so far, what impact it has had on me and how I can develop further.
Problem Solving: Being able to solve problems quickly and effectively can give a graduate employee the upper hand against their competitors because it shows that they will require less resources and support in order to solve problems themselves. Problem solving has some importance in all professional areas. In my experience, I believe I am good at effective problem solving and making quick decisions under pressure.
Pro-Activity: Pro-activity in the workplace can be measured by how a person keeps themselves busy or the things they do to continuously improve their performance; Whether that be attending extra training sessions, asking for support or just finding new ways to improve procedures or ways of doing tasks. I feel as though I am a pro-active person in the workplace. As a spa host from September to July, there would be times when all guests were attended to and other jobs had to be done. The jobs would be thing that other people may forget about or not always have time to do, for example, laundry, re-stocking the towel and robe cupboard or cleaning the stock room. I believe that doing these small jobs helps other staff members as well as making the general running of the day smoother.
Self- Awareness: Self-awareness involves being able to identify when you have done things well and not so well, and working out what can be done on a personal and professional level to help fix any mistakes. It also helps when we need to be confident in an unfamiliar situation. For example, as a newly trained therapist, I currently find it difficult to promote products and treatments in spa as i am not confident with selling something I have not been familiar with for very long. However, I know that I have more knowledge on these products and treatments than I let myself believe, and should be more confident when promoting them to clients in order to boost my retailing.
Team Working: In many jobs, team work is essential, especially in the spa and wellness industry. It is vital that everyone is able to communicate with each other efficiently and can work well together to ensure everything runs as it should. I feel as though I am good at working in a team because I have had lots of experience. These experiences include doing group work and school and university as well as in a commercial, working environment. Being able to work as well in a team as I can on my own helps me to stand out as it is always important to not rely on other people but to know how to use their skills and your own to an advantage.
Leadership: "Leadership is a process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives”
Learning leadership skills is important because you never know when you could be put in a situation when you need them. They are also useful when working in a team because you are able to take the lead in any decision making if needed. Leadership involves knowing how to prioritise, motivate, cooperate and set goals. My experiences with leadership include running dance shows in secondary school and doing group projects and presentations throughout my years at school. I believe I have good leadership skills but they could be improved. I will be able to do this through my time at university through working in the spa in a supervisory role and being actively involved in group projects.
Organisation Skills: My organisation skills are something that i feel I can work on a lot. I am currently balancing lectures and private study time with work and my personal life. At the beginning of the academic year I was finding this difficult as it was all new to me and I had to work out the balance that worked best for me. I felt as though I was balancing everything but I did not think about anything that could get in the way of timetabled work time or plans such as time to go home or extra lectures/guest speakers. Throughout university I will always have to adapt the balance as I will be getting more work in the years to come and it will be increasingly difficult meaning I will have to spend more time on doing my work to the best of my ability.
Enterprise Skills: In order to be enterprising, you need to have a mixture of other skills. According to the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship these include initiative, leadership, problem solving and independence. I believe I possess come of the skills they state, but can still develop more of them, such as creativity for example.
Confidence Building: I am always the first to put myself down and talk about what I am bad at rather than what I am good at. I know that i have to change this in order to build my self-confidence. Without self-confidence, I will never believe the good comments i get about my work or anything else i do. Believing that I cannot do something has become a way of thinking and I need to change this if I am to progress quickly through university.
Specific Occupational Skills: I am fairly quick at picking up specific skills that are needed in different jobs. For example when working in retail I had to learn the standards of the store and how to do things in the way of the company. The same in the Devonshire Spa, I had to learn what jobs had to be done throughout the day and how to get them done efficiently.
Technical Skills: As a student at university who came directly from A-levels, I had not trained at all in the beauty industry and I was worried that I would struggle to learn the skills that I now have. Ending my first year with certificates in Ishga massage and facial and Elemis deep tissue and advanced facials has enabled me to gain experience in the spa of carrying out treatments on commercial clients and develop my technical skills at an increasing rate. Through my time at university I will become competent in a number of advance Elemis treatments.
Networking: I have limited experiences with networking as I have only really started learning networking techniques since joining university. My current experiences include going to Professional Beauty North, The Buxton Spa and Wellness Conference and Industry Day. All of these experiences have involved talking to different professionals within the industry and learning about them and how they got into the positions they are in. This has allowed me to gain confidence and learn the best questions to ask to get the most valuable information. This will help me in the future when looking for jobs and placement in my following years as a student.
Commercial Awareness: I feel as though I could improve my commercial awareness a lot in the next few years as a university student because it can be very helpful when it comes to researching for my work. In order to improve my commercial awareness, I can sign up to spa magazines such as Spa Business, Professional Spa and Wellness and DaySpa. All of these magazines will help me to keep up to date with the latest treatments and business successes as well as helping me to learn more about the modules I will be studying by providing me with further information and other ways of looking at information that I already have.
Professional Development: Professional development is key when working on other graduate attributes because it helps you to become more self-aware and more confident. Without these skills, it would be difficult to enhance my contribution to the workplace and keep up-to-date with any changes. My professional development kick-started when I became a university student because I knew I had to develop myself both academically and personally in order to have a chance to go into my preferred line of work. This module is all about evaluating my professional development so far, what impact it has had on me and how I can develop further.
Problem Solving: Being able to solve problems quickly and effectively can give a graduate employee the upper hand against their competitors because it shows that they will require less resources and support in order to solve problems themselves. Problem solving has some importance in all professional areas. In my experience, I believe I am good at effective problem solving and making quick decisions under pressure.
Pro-Activity: Pro-activity in the workplace can be measured by how a person keeps themselves busy or the things they do to continuously improve their performance; Whether that be attending extra training sessions, asking for support or just finding new ways to improve procedures or ways of doing tasks. I feel as though I am a pro-active person in the workplace. As a spa host from September to July, there would be times when all guests were attended to and other jobs had to be done. The jobs would be thing that other people may forget about or not always have time to do, for example, laundry, re-stocking the towel and robe cupboard or cleaning the stock room. I believe that doing these small jobs helps other staff members as well as making the general running of the day smoother.
Self- Awareness: Self-awareness involves being able to identify when you have done things well and not so well, and working out what can be done on a personal and professional level to help fix any mistakes. It also helps when we need to be confident in an unfamiliar situation. For example, as a newly trained therapist, I currently find it difficult to promote products and treatments in spa as i am not confident with selling something I have not been familiar with for very long. However, I know that I have more knowledge on these products and treatments than I let myself believe, and should be more confident when promoting them to clients in order to boost my retailing.
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(Goleman's ET, 1999)
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Leadership: "Leadership is a process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives”
Organisation Skills: My organisation skills are something that i feel I can work on a lot. I am currently balancing lectures and private study time with work and my personal life. At the beginning of the academic year I was finding this difficult as it was all new to me and I had to work out the balance that worked best for me. I felt as though I was balancing everything but I did not think about anything that could get in the way of timetabled work time or plans such as time to go home or extra lectures/guest speakers. Throughout university I will always have to adapt the balance as I will be getting more work in the years to come and it will be increasingly difficult meaning I will have to spend more time on doing my work to the best of my ability.
Enterprise Skills: In order to be enterprising, you need to have a mixture of other skills. According to the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship these include initiative, leadership, problem solving and independence. I believe I possess come of the skills they state, but can still develop more of them, such as creativity for example.
Confidence Building: I am always the first to put myself down and talk about what I am bad at rather than what I am good at. I know that i have to change this in order to build my self-confidence. Without self-confidence, I will never believe the good comments i get about my work or anything else i do. Believing that I cannot do something has become a way of thinking and I need to change this if I am to progress quickly through university.
Specific Occupational Skills: I am fairly quick at picking up specific skills that are needed in different jobs. For example when working in retail I had to learn the standards of the store and how to do things in the way of the company. The same in the Devonshire Spa, I had to learn what jobs had to be done throughout the day and how to get them done efficiently.
Technical Skills: As a student at university who came directly from A-levels, I had not trained at all in the beauty industry and I was worried that I would struggle to learn the skills that I now have. Ending my first year with certificates in Ishga massage and facial and Elemis deep tissue and advanced facials has enabled me to gain experience in the spa of carrying out treatments on commercial clients and develop my technical skills at an increasing rate. Through my time at university I will become competent in a number of advance Elemis treatments.
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