Introduction
Personal progress is significantly dependent on one’s ability to adequately assess the current situation regarding the characteristics contributing to it or hindering it. For this purpose, it is vital to apply such instruments as SWOT analysis representing a technique for evaluating a person’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This tool allows one to promote the efficiency of one’s work or, as in my case, predict the potential difficulties connected to the future career.
Hence, when applied to people, this set of qualities provides a clear picture of what should be improved to become qualified specialists. The consideration of the factors specified above would demonstrate the existing gaps in my knowledge and other areas to subsequently eliminate them. My goal in this direction is to consider myself from the perspective of suitability for the selected career, as a social worker, and identify the possible improvements. Therefore, this paper aims to assess my skills and abilities contributing to my future professional success as an employee in the field of health and social care, identify weaknesses, describe opportunities, and assess threats.
Strengths
The first category of factors affecting my work is the presence of particular strengths related to its specificities. The principal quality contributing to my promotion is enthusiasm, which explains my interest in this sphere (see Appendix A). It is complemented by my trustworthiness since I demonstrate a serious attitude towards any task delegated to me and, therefore, always fulfill the expectations of others. Meanwhile, I tend to use a creative approach to find solutions to problems, which increases the correspondence of decisions to the identified issues. These qualities are accompanied by my discipline and patience in communicating with both colleagues and clients.
Another aspect of my personality that seems to be extremely beneficial for my future career is the respect I demonstrate to other people regardless of their position. From my point of view, everyone has specific needs which should be addressed, and this stance allows me to avoid conflicts by showing my understanding of situations. Moreover, I am determined to do my best when performing work tasks, and my dedication adds to the list of characteristics facilitating the promotion. What is more important, I can work in a team, which helps me make decisions with consideration of all opinions and not my only personal vision.
Weaknesses
The identified strengths are complemented by several weaknesses which can hinder my professional growth in the future. First, I sometimes struggle with flexibility in the decision-making process, and it affects my overall performance as a worker (see Appendix A). In situations when I do not have enough time to thoroughly analyze a case and have to act immediately, I might face difficulty regarding the appropriateness of my choices of care for patients. The influence of this factor can be explicitly seen in the conditions of multitasking when there is no division of time for each task. Thus, I tend to be unable to improvise when needed and I might fail to assist clients, which will adversely affect my progress.
Another circumstance related to my weaknesses is the lack of experience. However, it is only a temporary issue, which will be resolved as soon as I start working full-time. The critical concern, in this case, is not the absence of practice but my inability to be assertive enough to claim a leadership position in an organization. This quality can also be developed over time, but the problem is in my initial reputation as a worker, which would be hard to change. Therefore, I should put my efforts into the acquisition of leadership skills.
Opportunities
The opportunities for my success in the workplace as an employee in the field of health and social care are connected to the education corresponding to this goal. Since I am currently studying to become a qualified specialist in this sphere, a clear orientation on the promotion complemented by certifications in the future will be advantageous (See Appendix A). Moreover, my actions will not be limited by the university courses as I am willing to attend extra classes in the future depending on the specialization of my work. This measure will allow me to address the gaps in knowledge, which will be revealed at the time of my employment.
Presently, being a student without the proper experience, I still aim at using every opportunity to put the learned theories into practice and consult with other people engaged in this field. Therefore, the opportunities for my career promotion are conditional upon my current study, my desire to continue my education after graduating from the university, and the actions intended to gain more practical knowledge at the moment.
Threats
The threats related to my professional development as a social worker primarily include the presence of numerous qualified specialists with extensive experience in the field. Nevertheless, this factor plays a significant role only in the early stages of my career, and its influence will be mitigated in the process of practicing. The situation is added by the lack of trustworthy new workers and the corresponding attitude of employers towards them.
Therefore, I will have to work on the creation of an appropriate image to compensate for my lack of experience and enhance promotion in the workplace. In this case, the remaining barrier will be the weaknesses identified above. This fact allows concluding on the necessity to eliminate them by working on the personality traits identified as undesirable. In other words, the principal threats will be addressed if I acquire the necessary leadership skills, become more assertive, learn to multitask, and thereby improve my flexibility and improvisation. In this case, the significant number of more qualified workers and the perception of new employees by the organizations will not present an obstacle to my professional development.
Conclusion
To summarize, the implementation of SWOT analysis to my skills and abilities revealed the strong and weak points requiring particular attention for my future career as a health and social care worker. Thus, the enthusiastic and creative approach to tasks complemented by discipline, trustworthiness, and dedication will facilitate my promotion. Alongside the ability to cooperate with other colleagues, these characteristics will be extremely beneficial for the identified purpose.
However, to fully implement them, I would have to acquire leadership skills, learn to be more assertive, and improvise. As for opportunities, they are defined by my education as well as the willingness to take extra courses and put the theory into practice. The specified circumstances, when viewed through the lens of possible threats, demonstrate the probability of a positive outcome. In this way, the presence of other qualified specialists and the lack of trust in new colleagues will not hinder my progress in the long run.
Appendix A
SWOT Table.