This is an individually written assessment, in the form of an essay. You are required to research the academic literature and high-quality practitioner information about professional bodies, specifically those in your cognate area of study. You are then required to examine critically the material you identified and think about your own personal situation in terms of the current state of your career development. Subsequently, you are required to apply the academic and practitioner literatures to your current career situation, and produce a written essay that clearly answers the following question:

Why is professional body membership beneficial for your career?

While this essay contains some reference to your own current career situation, it is crucial to incorporate references to academic and practitioner material in the essay as you have to very clearly apply the material you identified to your specific career situation.

Note: Academic literature refers to peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles. High-quality practitioner information refers to material published by reliable practitioner and industry bodies, such as reports from professional bodies or career experts, reputable news outlets, etc.

All academic AND practitioner sources, which you have used in the text of your essay, need to be referenced correctly in the text AND within a reference list at the end of the essay. You are required to use a MINIMUM of 5 suitable peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles, and a MINIMUM of 3 suitable high-quality practitioner resources.

The required length for this essay is 1,200 words (+/-10%), excluding diagrams, tables, and reference list. Tables and figures are optional and should only be used if relevant and clearly referred to in the body of the essay. You must use common font (e.g. Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman, etc.) with font size 11 or 12, as well as appropriate margins and spacing. A professional title page should be provided, but abstract/executive summary, table of contents, and structured headings are not required.

As a Masters-level student, you are required to engage in research as per the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) guidelines. Two specific requirements need to be considered. Students need to demonstrate “a body of knowledge that includes the understanding of recent developments in a discipline and/or area of professional practice", and demonstrate "knowledge of research principles and methods applicable to a field of work and/or learning”. Each unit in your Masters program has a number of required weekly readings in terms of academic texts, journals and business publications that represent the appropriate body of knowledge and recent developments referred to by the AQF. In order to demonstrate the ability to engage in appropriate research, students should read and utilise these texts and journals and publications, and as a Masters student, demonstrate an ability to research beyond this minimum standard through additional texts, journals and studies that demonstrate an ability to engage in independent research. This is an advanced level unit, and accrediting bodies are also looking for evidence of independent research, so the ability to conduct this project without continually relying on your tutors and lecturers is an important part of the learning process for this unit.

You should ensure that you understand the specific research that is required for each assessment piece and recognise that if you merely meet this minimum requirement, you will receive the minimum grade for demonstrated research. Your attention is drawn to the University’s stated position on plagiarism. THE WORK OF OTHERS, WHICH IS INCLUDED IN THE ASSIGNMENT MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO ITS SOURCE. A full list of references must be submitted as part of the assessment. Your assignment will be marked on the following criteria; detailed marking rubrics are available in Moodle:

• Demonstrate understanding of the benefits of professional body membership (30%)
• Demonstrate awareness of contemporary practitioner information about professional body membership benefits (20%)
• Ability to apply academic and practitioner literature to own personal career situation (25%)
• Quality and appropriateness of references, and accuracy of referencing (10%)
• Professional written communication (15%)

Late submission and academic misconduct penalties will be applied in accordance with the university policies.

This is an individual, written assessment, in the form of a report. You are required to:

• Identify a role/job that you would like to get within 6-12 months after you have completed your Masters course.
• Use job search portals to identify two (2) current job advertisements that correspond to the role/job you have identified. Please make sure you download/screenshot ALL details of the job advertisements so you can attach them as appendices to your assignment.
• Identify the various requirements/criteria outlined in the two job advertisements.
• Critically reflect on your own current competencies in comparison to the requirements/criteria from the two job advertisements. Competencies include skills, knowledge, qualifications/licenses, attitudes, etc. To reflect effectively, you should identify specific examples of current behaviour relating to the assessment of your competencies.
• Compare your own current competencies to the requirements outlined in the job advertisements – establish competency gaps. Please ONLY reflect on those competencies that are included in the job advertisement requirements/criteria.
  
• Develop a realistic action plan for filling the competency gaps you have identified.
• Prepare a report, which outlines the requirements/criteria of the job advertisements, your reflection on current competencies, and identification of competency gaps. The report must conclude with a realistic and specific action plan that outlines how you plan to fill the competency gaps between now and 6-12 months after your graduation.

The report must clearly demonstrate the reflection, not just the outcome thereof – this means specific reference to past behaviour must be made. You must present your chosen two job advertisements in their entirety in an appendix. If you choose to use specific diagnostic tools/checklists to help with your self-reflection, you must also name them and present them in your appendix - please note that diagnostic tools are not required for this assignment and should only be used if they are truly relevant to the requirements/criteria of the job advertisements. Academic literature references are not required in this assessment.

The required length for this report is 1,200 words (+/-10%), excluding preliminaries, diagrams, tables, appendices, and reference list. You must use common font (e.g. Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman, etc.) with font size 11 or 12, as well as appropriate margins and spacing. Preliminaries include: title page; executive summary; table of contents with numbered, hierarchical headings; and any other optional elements (e.g. table of figures, etc.) you wish to include to make your report more professional.

As a Masters-level student, you are required to engage in research as per the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) guidelines. Two specific requirements need to be considered. Students need to demonstrate “a body of knowledge that includes the understanding of recent developments in a discipline and/or area of professional practice", and demonstrate "knowledge of research principles and methods applicable to a field of work and/or learning”. Each unit in your Masters program has a number of required weekly readings in terms of academic texts, journals and business publications that represent the appropriate body of knowledge and recent developments referred to by the AQF. In order to demonstrate the ability to engage in appropriate research, students should read and utilise these texts and journals and publications, and as a Masters student, demonstrate an ability to research beyond this minimum standard through additional texts, journals and studies that demonstrate an ability to engage in independent research. This is an advanced level unit, and accrediting bodies are also looking for evidence of independent research, so the ability to conduct this project without continually relying on your tutors and lecturers is an important part of the learning process for this unit.

You should ensure that you understand the specific research that is required for each assessment piece and recognise that if you merely meet this minimum requirement, you will receive the minimum grade for demonstrated research. Your attention is drawn to the University’s stated position on plagiarism. THE WORK OF OTHERS, WHICH IS INCLUDED IN THE ASSIGNMENT MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO ITS SOURCE. A full list of references must be submitted as part of the assessment. Your assignment will be marked on the following criteria; detailed marking rubrics are available in Moodle:

• Ability to analyse job advertisements to identify current job requirements (10%)
• Ability to critically reflect on own current competencies (30%)
• Ability to identify competency gaps (20%)
• Ability to devise a realistic and specific action plan to address competency gaps (20%)
• Professional written communication (15%)
• Inclusion of job advertisements as appendix (5%)

Late submission and academic misconduct penalties will be applied in accordance with the university policies.

This is an individual assessment, which takes the form of a portfolio. Throughout the term, the workshops will expose you to various activities relating to professional practice and career development. These activities allow you to develop a range of artefacts (e.g. written or infographic resume, brief reflections, personal pitch video, cover letter), which you need to collate and compile into one single Word document (a template is available in Moodle). A list of acceptabe artefacts is available in Moodle and you must ensure that TEN (10) of these are included in your portfolio - please note that some of the artefacts on the list are compulsory for all students, while the remaining artefacts are to be considered a pool, from which you need to choose artefacts relevant to you and your career aspirations.

At the end of term, you must produce a short overview introduction (700 words +/- 10%) that provides a very brief overview of your background, your short- to medium-term career aspirations, and a comment on each of your artefacts that should outline each artefact's relevance to your personal career development.

The portfolio (including the overview introduction) will be submitted at the end of term via Moodle, but it is crucial you compile the artefacts THROUGHOUT the term, not all at the end.

The portfolio can contain multimedia artefacts (e.g. YouTube links; screenshots of LinkedIn page; PowerPoint slide) but any text-based documents you create yourself (e.g. reflective statements, resumes, cover letter) need to be provided in Word format within the portfolio – screenshots of these documents are not permissible. Please also note that access to any online artefacts (e.g. YouTube videos; LinkedIn page hyperlinks) is your responsibility – any broken links or inaccessible artefacts will not be able to attract marks. There is no word or page limit for the portfolio itself.

As a Masters-level student, you are required to engage in research as per the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) guidelines. Two specific requirements need to be considered. Students need to demonstrate “a body of knowledge that includes the understanding of recent developments in a discipline and/or area of professional practice", and demonstrate "knowledge of research principles and methods applicable to a field of work and/or learning”. Each unit in your Masters program has a number of required weekly readings in terms of academic texts, journals and business publications that represent the appropriate body of knowledge and recent developments referred to by the AQF. In order to demonstrate the ability to engage in appropriate research, students should read and utilise these texts and journals and publications, and as a Masters student, demonstrate an ability to research beyond this minimum standard through additional texts, journals and studies that demonstrate an ability to engage in independent research. This is an advanced level unit, and accrediting bodies are also looking for evidence of independent research, so the ability to conduct this project without continually relying on your tutors and lecturers is an important part of the learning process for this unit.

You should ensure that you understand the specific research that is required for each assessment piece and recognise that if you merely meet this minimum requirement, you will receive the minimum grade for demonstrated research. Your attention is drawn to the University’s stated position on plagiarism. THE WORK OF OTHERS, WHICH IS INCLUDED IN THE ASSIGNMENT MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO ITS SOURCE. A full list of references must be submitted as part of the assessment. Your assignment will be marked on the following criteria; detailed marking rubrics are available in Moodle:

• Overview introduction clearly demonstrates relevance of included artefacts for the student’s personal situation (15%)
• Ability to apply professional practice and career development skills demonstrated through accurate and complete artefacts (70%; all artefacts are weighted equally at 7% per artefact)
• Professional presentation of portfolio (15%)

Late submission and academic misconduct penalties will be applied in accordance with the university policies.