Personal and Work Experience

Introduction

The aim of this assessment is to analyse the skills that I have managed to develop from my work experience, and the new skills in which I need to develop in order to become a more efficient worker. It will be based around a set of slides used previously which identified a numerous of skills such as the Foundation Skill, Transferable Skill and the Marketable Skill.

Another objective of this assessment is to raise my profile of employability, i.e. to make myself more employable with all the skills I have developed, and to be able to approach employability in a strategic way.

I will be discussing all three Work Experience plans- Employability Profile in more detail and areas in which I know I will need to improve on in order to improve my set skills for the working environment. The organisation in which I work for this module is La Cave wine bar and restaurant in south Anne street, Dublin 2 I have been working in the kitchen as a sous chef and I've also worked on the floor as a waiter and throughout my experience I have managed to gain a lot of new skills in which I will be discussing in this assessment all the skills I have developed and skills in which I will need to improve on.

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Foundation Skill

DefinitionFoundation skills are the basic skills, and these are required for each employee. They can be classified as basic, people, thinking and personal qualities. They are fundamental as they include the combination of the basic foundation skills which are Literacy, Numeracy, Listening and Language, in shorter words it's the basics on if you know how to read, write and speak which are the basic skills in order to be employable, as it shows that you have completed some sort of an education.

Other foundation skills are Self Esteem, Responsibility, Team work and Leadership.

Work Place Skills

I do have the Foundation Skills as I am able to read, write and speak in the main language which is English, but I have noticed that some of my co-workers in La Cave don't have some of the fundamental foundation skills, as there is always mis understanding because of the language barrier, and because they lack some of the foundation skills such as Language and Literacy, but Numeracy is good. I don't seem to have a problem when it comes to the language and speaking skill as I speak another language fluently which allows me to communicate with the head chef with no misunderstanding and also speaking the origin language which is English which allows me to communicate with my English speaking co-workers and clients if they have any questions or queries about certain dishes.

Other Foundation Skills I have managed to develop in my workplace is being able to work in a team as it is crucial, because everyone needs each other in the organisation, for example in the organisation I work in La Cave Restaurant, they wouldn't be able to run without the chef as he is the only person working in the kitchen Team Work is important in this case scenario because as I have mentioned the chef is the important instrument of the restaurant, and if there is no team work then the job will get too overwhelming for the chef causing him to be angry and tame it out not only on the rest of the floor staff but also on the dishes he is making, so having good communication and being able to help one another is important as it is part of working as a team, and jobs get done quicker by working in a team and more efficiently. Also whilst working in La Cave I've managed to be committed to what I have to do, which was food preparation and then the serving of dishes, and the reason to why I was committed was because I wanted to ensure that the customers/clients were satisfied with the dish that they have ordered and have enjoyed it and there is nothing better than seeing a plate coming back in through those doors and nice and empty and hearing the waiters telling you that the clients enjoyed the food. It goes to show that I made the dish with love and passion as I am committed to what I enjoy doing.

Marketable Skills

DefinitionMarketable Skills are abilities that are demanded by an employer in a job advertisement. Some of these can be a set skill from the Foundation Skill such as Team work. Marketable skills are important in job searching cycle as they play a huge role and also evolve a lot throughout the years. an example would be being able to work in a team and being able to listen to one another. There are also extra skills in which are no use to the employer, these are called unmarketable Skills and example would be being able to dance a choreography perfectly well but it's not a skill that is suitable for the kitchen environment.

Work Place

I have many marketable and unmarketable skills, and I've also managed to develop some other skills whilst on the job. Some of my marketable skills are that I am very Work ethic, which means that I enjoy what I do and I love working, as I am an independent student I enjoy the work life so much that I currently work two jobs, one for college and the other just for myself just to be able to keep myself busy and not at home sitting down doing nothing. I managed to develop Communication Skills as in La Cave it involves me to communicate with one another, in my own personal opinion I think that communication is key in the workforce as it's how the business works because if there is no communication within the organisation than there is no effective work being done in the organisation. Communication also allows the employer communicate with its suppliers effectively, an example of poor communication I have experienced in the organisation is when the chef and the waiter had a huge argument in the kitchen about one of the dishes that went out over the Christmas period, and it looked like the chef really wanted to hit the waiter as he was annoying him, but in that case my father came up to take the chef away and to tell him to home that he's finished and that he wasn't worth getting angry for, this showed that there was a lack of communication between both the waiter and the chef about one of the dishes and the allergens in it.

Whilst working in La Cave I have managed to develop the adaptability skill which allows me to adapt fairly quickly to a new working environment, this is all due to me already knowing somebody who works in the work place i.e. my father and already knowing the two managers of the work place as they have played a huge role in my life when it came to me growing up, also because I am a person who is able to adapt to new beginnings and new environments as I have travelled and moved around a lot in my childhood years. I have also manage to develop the ambition skill whilst working at La Cave as I always like to get things done at a certain time and I also enjoy being able to get stuff done correctly, and working in La Cave has taught me how to get things done quickly, i.e. getting dishes out within 5-8 minutes and correctly.

Transferable Skills

DefinitionTransferable skills can also be defined as portable skills, these are skills that can be used in more the none job in other words it can be transferred from one work place to another. Examples of Transferable Skills are communication, Leadership, Organisation Skills, Analytical Skills and Interpersonal Skills. Communication Skills also play a part in the Foundation and Marketable skills as it is the key factor in having a Employable Profile.

Work Place

I have managed to be able to transfer some of my skills from one job to another, for example in the retail sector, my job is to talk to customers, serve them and be able to have a conversation with them, and also be able to communicate with my co-workers and the suppliers, and I have managed to transfer my communication skills from the retail sector to the restaurant organisation as I am able to communicate with one another effectively. There are two ways in which communications can be defined, it can be defined as Verbal communication or written communication. The skill I have managed to develop and transfer from one job to another is the verbal communication as I spend my day to day routine communicating with an individual whether it's an individual I know personally well or to a client who I see regularly in the organisation. I would have to improve on my written communication as I barley use it as I'm more of a verbal person, written communication is quite important in today's world as everything is being done via the internet and being able to communicate with other sectors via internet is becoming more and more used now due to the expansion of the web worldwide.

A skill in which I have developed whilst working in La Cave is Leadership, which is being able to lead a group of people within the organisation, since I am sous chef I have a big responsibility of leading when the food goes out and making sure that the floor staff are getting their jobs done correctly since the head chef (my father) has barley any English I usually have to step in and take over and lead the kitchen and make sure the floor staff are doing what they are supposed to be doing is giving us the orders and ask us questions that clients have about certain dishes if they aren't aware.

I've also managed to develop more my creativity skills from working in La Cave, I've always been a creative person myself. Since secondary school I've always enjoyed art, music and Creative writing, the reason as to how I have managed to improve my creativity skill is because you don't just slap food onto a plate you have to make sure you make it looks presentable and to be able to decorate the plate and make it look nice, and whilst I've been working in the kitchen I have managed to improve it as I've said as I've been decorating plates and making them look presentable. An example was during the Christmas period I was asked to plate the prawn cocktail starter with guacamole, in order to make it look appetising I had to use a small circle shape cut out and place the guacamole on the bottom as it was more dense than the prawns and then place the prawn mixture on top and make it look like a cylinder, and then put some green sauce around the plate and doing designs with it and cutting a small tomato into four like a small flower and placing it on the top of the prawn cylinder with some parsley and a sliced lemon to the side. I will be able to transfer this skill to many different jobs within the hospitality sector as it is a good skill to have especially in a restaurant.

Improvements

From identifying all the different skills and all the skills in which I have developed whilst working at the organisation or the skills that I have managed to bring with me to the organisation from previous jobs, I will now be discussing all the ways in which I could improve on some of my skills in order to make the employee profile more employable.I would have to improve on my written communication as I barley use it, as I'm more of a verbal person who likes and enjoys communicating one on one with the clients but for the futures purpose being able to be good at written communications is quite important as in the hospitality sector most of the negotiation, sales and conferences are now being done via internet due to the expansion of the web worldwide and also because there will be people who would rather communicate with one another via the web over email then going over and arranging a day and place in which they can meet up, also if it is in the conference case scenario most people would be coming from different parts of the world, and would find it more efficient to do it all over the web.

I also have more Unmarketable skills than Marketable skills and I would have to be able to improve more of my marketable skills in order for my employability profile to be more employable

I would have to improve on the foundation skill of being a flexibility employee, but as I am a full time student I am not able to write on my curriculum vitae that I'm fully flexible as I am not fully flexible due to being in college from Monday to Friday, and being fully flexible shows you are passionate about what you do and you are committed to work even on your days off. Other Foundation skills I would need to improve on is my organisation skills as it is quite important in the industry to be very organised. Also my numeracy isn't my strongest skill and I would need to improve on it as there will be

Conclusion

In Conclusion I have managed to define and explain all three set of skills for the Employability Profile which were Foundation skills, Marketable Skills and Transferable skills. I was able to discuss and analyse the skills that I have and the ones in which I have managed to develop from my work experience. I have noticed that I have a lot of unmarketable skills for the industry that I work in as I am a very active individual but I've also discovered a lot of marketable skills I have and which I've been able to develop which was one of the objectives of this assessment.

Throughout my experience in La Cave I have managed to gain a lot of valuable new skills and knowledge about the back of the restaurant, and the front of the restaurant. There are many different skills for each department for example in the kitchen I have managed to learn many new skills and knowledge about different styles of cooking food.

I have also been able to raise my profile of employability as I have analysed my skills and I've also managed to be able to develop new ones throughout my work experience in La Cave, I have discussed all three Work Experience plans- Employability Profile in detail and the areas in which I know I will need to improve on in order to improve my set skills for the working environment.

References

Career Professionals of Canada. (2019). Marketable Skills for the Future - Career Professionals of Canada. [online] Available at: [Accessed 7 Mar. 2019].