Professional Skills for Accountants

Assessment Brief

This assessment evaluates your ability to describe the skills you need at the start of your career, produce documentation to promote yourself in the job market, and plan for the skills you will need to develop into a global professional.

You will write a Professional Skills Report. Students are required to complete THREE tasks:

1. Describe professional skills for employability
2. Produce a professional CV
3. Discuss the skills you need to develop

The Learning Outcomes that you have to meet in order to pass this assessment are:

LO1: Describe essential professional skills for employability.

LO2: Identify your professional skills to enhance your professional development.

LO3: Discuss essential skills to be a business professional in the global workplace.

Your Professional Skills Report should contain the following:

Introduction You should begin with an overview of tasks 1, 2 and 3.

TASK 1: Describe professional skills for employability

1)       Identify and describe the professional skills needed to be successful in the workplace.

2)       Explain why these skills are needed to be effective in the workplace. (This task meets LO1)

(Total marks for Task 1: 30 Marks)

TASK 2: Produce a professional CV

1)   Produce a professional CV for a job you would like to apply for after your degree (e.g. a graduate scheme). The CV must be professional in appearance, and contain sections such as Education, Skills and Languages. (This task meets LO 2)

(Total marks for Task 2: 30 Marks)

TASK 3: Discuss the skills you need to develop

1)       Describe the skills of a business leader you personally respect and explain how their skills have enabled them to become successful.

You will need to research a business leader to discover their best skills, and your answer must include ONE of leadership, teamwork, diversity or business ethics

2)       Discuss the skills you need to gain in future in order to develop yourself into a business professional. Based on your chosen business leader, you should discuss which skills you would like to improve in order to progress your career; your answer must include ONE of leadership, teamwork, diversity or business ethics (This task meets LO3)

(Total marks for Task 3: 30 Marks)

Conclusion: You will need to summarise the key points of the assessment tasks.

Structure

Your report should contain the following:

• BPP assignment cover sheet (including SRN and word count)
  • Business report title page
  • Contents page
    • • • • Introduction (200 words)*
  • Task 1 – Describe professional skills for employability (700 words)
  • Task 2 – Produce a professional CV (700 words)
  • Task 3 – Discuss the skills you need to develop (700 words)
  • Conclusion (200 words)*
  • References (Correct Harvard Referencing applied throughout, including in-text citation and reference list)

*(Total marks for introduction, conclusion and structure: 10 Marks)

Use of evidence in the report

Your report must contain evidence that you have read and understood the theories, models, additional reading and case studies in Professional Skills for Accountants on the Hub.

Which forms of evidence must be in the report

• In-text citations and a bibliography: there must be frequent citations throughout your assignment; they should be supported by a reference list

• References to course materials: throughout your assignment there must be frequent references to the articles and videos in the Topic Workbook and Additional Reading and Videos section, which can be found in the Prepare section of every topic in the Hub