INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Individual Development Plan

Individual Development Plan

Graduate Attributes and Skills in the graduate labor market

In the graduate labor market the graduate skills and attributes play significant role. Most of the employers today hire only those graduates who demonstrate certain skills and attributes. Almost all of the universities today focus on developing graduate attributes (Evers, Rush, & Berdrow, 1998). The graduate attributes includes all the skills, understandings and qualities which a student should develop during his or her stay at the institution. The attributes of the graduates are not only limited to their technical knowledge and disciplinary expertise but there are also other areas as well ( Hager, Holland, & Beckett, 2002). The graduates should also contribute in the betterment of the society as well. One of the studies defined three attributes and four overlapping clusters of skills and abilities which a university graduate should possess. The three important attributes were aspiration and personal development, outlook and engagement, enquiry and lifelong learning. Similarly, the four clusters were personal and intellectual autonomy, communication, research and enquiry and personal effectiveness ( Hager, Holland, & Beckett, 2002).

In the graduate labor market only those graduates are given preferences that have sound professional knowledge and experience along with extraordinary personal qualities ( Hesketh, 2000). Most of the students pursue higher studies in order to get a good job. Many of the surveys have confirmed this fact that most of the students join universities to improve their job opportunities. However, only a few programs offered at the universities are vocational and there is a dire need of introducing more and more training based programs. This fact has also been confirmed by one of the researches which indicated that most of the employers demand that the graduates should have wider skills and knowledge and not only the limited knowledge of their subject. They emphasized the graduating students should have good leadership, problems solving, critical thinking and communication skills ( Hesketh, 2000).

In our case we have to develop an individual development plan for a average international student who has completed his studies in UK and will return to his home country Angola and will try to find job in a highly competitive market. We will try to find the major employers, the starting salaries in Angola and the growing industries or SMEs in Angola.

Major Employers in Angola

Some of the major employers in Angola are as follows:

Ancar, Automotive

Banco Angolano de Investimentos (BAI),bank

ENSA - Seguros de Angola, insurance

JFPI Corporation, investments

Caminhos de Ferro de Luanda E.P. (CFL), rail transport

Angola LNG, natural gas

Sonangol Group, oil and gas reserve management, state-owned

Angola Telecom, state-owned telecommunications

Aeronáutica, charter airline

Starting Salaries in Angola

The starting salary in Angola varies depending on the qualification of the graduating student. If the graduating student has some experience or has done internships than his salary will be higher as compared to those graduates who have no experience at all. Similarly, the starting salaries of the local graduate students are lower as compared to the foreign ...