Plan
Whether one is just starting or is wondering if the career
into which he/she is venturing would suit them better, self-assessments can
assist them in considering various options and confirm the types of careers
that might suit them (London
& Smither, 1999). For
that reason, the researcher’s plan for this iteration and research entailed
examining the Web and searching for the sites that contained the information
that would be useful for assessing himself to understand his strengths,
weaknesses, interests, and core values. The aim of assessing himself along
those lines was to find out if he was in the right position to venture into his
career and be competent in my area of profession. He would then use this
assessment to polish the areas that he will find to be deficient.
The researcher would begin with searching through various
sites on the Mozilla browser that contain useful information about
self-assessment. He then planned to select the sites that contained the
specific information that he wanted especially about the tools for
self-assessment, the areas of self-assessment such interests, values, and
skills. Those three areas are the areas that are very important to the
self-assessment of any person. The
researcher also planned to go through the various tools including Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator, Keirsey Temperament Sorter, Myplan.com, Big Five, iSeek
Clusters, 16personalities, MyNextMove, and MAPP Test among others. This
research was planned for August 26, 2016 through to August 29, 2016 whereby in
the first two days he would find out about the sites and the tools, and the
last two days, August 28 to 29, 2016 he planned to test himself against the
three areas as mentioned above using the most appropriate type of tool among
the ones opted for.
Action
On the onset of August 26, 2016, the researcher embarked on
the research concerning the self-assessment to determine his strengths and
weaknesses, in the area of values, skills, and interests. He searched through
many websites online in a bid to find out the crucial information that he
wanted on self-assessment. Temperament Sorter, Myplan.com, Big Five, iSeek
Clusters, 16personalities, MyNextMove, MAPP Test, Holland Code, and PI
Behavioral Assessment; a total of ten self-assessment tools. The researcher analyzed each and used them
for assessing himself against the required professional requirements with the
aim of acquiring the elements that he did not have before. They proved to be
useful tools for my self-assessment task.
The site perfectly addressed the
three areas interest assessment, skills assessment, and work values. The career
assessment is a way of learning more about how well various careers might be
appropriate for one. Each of the assessment focused on a particular area of
skills, interests, and values. Through the assessment, the researcher was asked
questions regarding his likes, dislikes, my preferences, and strengths. In
interest assessment, the researcher had to find a career that best suits him
based on my qualifications. He then assessed himself to find out the careers HE
can do based the skills that he already had. Through the value assessment, He
got to assess himself on values and tenets that are important and desirable for
gaining a career satisfaction.
Observation
The researcher observed that before one sets foot in the
interview room, it is vital and paramount to have a spiel down pat. It is not
easy to have a spiel without knowing oneself better. Having an in-depth
understanding of oneself is essential when one is choosing or even changing a
career (Hall, 2004). The researcher observed that in my
race for assessing himself, there was no need of doing a soul-searching walkabout
for the purpose of understanding my values, emotional intelligence, personality
traits, interests, weaknesses, and motivations since there are so many tools
online that aided me in doing that effectively. He observed that when one
leverages a number of tools, it is easy for one to adequately assess themselves
in all the areas of self-assessment that will help them to choose the most
appropriate career.
Essentially, a career assessment helps to learn more about
how various careers may suit you (Gainor, 2006).
Through the self-assessment, the researcher observed that some results
indicated that my career was not suitable for me, but at the same time he
realized that it is not possible to score hundred percent in everything,
regardless of how interested and qualified one might be in a given area. Also, from the research; the
researcher observed that one’s skills describe what they like to do and what
they are good at. Based on that information, one is encouraged to develop
skills via training as well as experience so as to improve their ability to do
tasks (Van der Heijden, 2002). The researcher observed that it is
crucial to test one’s technical skills and soft skills because both of these
skills are imperative for success in one’s career.
Reflection
The researcher’s self-assessment research went on very well
as he got to learn many things about the suitability of my career. In the
search for his interests, weaknesses, strengths and skills as a web service
developer, the researcher got the knowledge on his strengths and weaknesses and
my deficiencies that he needed to work on so as to become perfectly suited for
the career. Leveraging a variety of self-assessment tools and taking several
tests helped me to unravel crucial information that had me understand himself
better as a web service developer.
However, the researcher’s failure to be specific about his
career line made him fear that he had missed out important information
concerning the suitability of this career. The researcher suggests that in the
subsequent iterations he will be more specific so as to find the information
that is most appropriate and informative. He also had limited time to take all
the tests, and he had made solid plans to ensure that the areas that were not
addressed are addressed as he carries out his subsequent research.
Iteration
3 - Identifying Requirements of Potential Employers
Plan
After the researcher was done with the self-assessment, he
then embarks on the process of finding the requirements of the potential
employers so that he can prepare adequately for the employment that suits his
strengths, interests, values, and skills. During this iteration, the researcher
plans to search on the Web so as to identify the employer requirements after
which he will then make a plan on how to meet those requirements through
training. The research process is set for September 1, 2016, through to
September 5, 2016.
During the first two days, that is, September 1, 2016,
through to September 2, 2016, the researcher plans to utilize a variety of
Career Resource centers with the aim of identifying the potential employers
within the US, especially those that have the job offerings for Web service
developers. He also plans to make use of
the CSB/SJU library resources, reading the newspapers, talking to friendly or
family members for the researcher’s targeted geographical area. After the
potential employers have been identified, the next ting that the researcher
plans to do is to filter the job positions on September 3, 2016, followed by
highlighting the job requirements of the selected cases on September 4, 2016,
and September 5, 2016.
Action
From this first day to the second dam, that is,
September 2, 2016, the researcher was mainly involved in searching for the
potential employers within his geographical region. The researcher leveraged a
variety of Career Resource Centers in his attempt to identify the potential
employers within the US, particularly the ones that advertised jobs vacancies
for Web service developers. He also did not miss out looking for the job
advertisements on the other media including CSB/SJU library resources, reading
the newspapers, and talking to friendly or family members.
After this through research accomplished in the first and
second day of the research, the researcher then embarked on the scrutiny of the
job offerings so as to select the company with the best employee treatment. He
had to decide on the few useful positions by carrying out a further
investigation into the companies and finding the way they treated their
employees, their remuneration for the position in comparison with a similar
position in other companies, and other conditions. During the last two days of
the research, that is, September 4, 2016 and September 5, 2016 the researcher
had to scrutinize all the job offerings against the job requirements with the
aim of dining all the requirements and making a plan on how to go about in
meeting the requirements through training in the net iteration.
Observation
The researcher observed from the potentials employers that
the web service development has a myriad of job tasks that calls for both the
technical as well as the non-technical skills. The web services developer is
supposed to demonstrate his/her experience in a broad range of well app
development tools and techniques (Zang & Rosson, 2008) They should also employ their skills in building greater
user experiences as well as integrating web applications with the back-end
systems. They are the people who are required to be proactive and work with the
modern development technologies including Grails and Groovy as they also grasp
the opportunities to grow into the technical leadership roles (Clabby, 2002). There are several job qualifications, skills, and
competencies that these professionals are required to have.
The researcher observed that the web service developers
ought to have undergone a post-secondary education in the area of computers,
engineering or any equivalent training plus a two or more years experience in
designing/executing interactive and data-intensive applications. The web
service developers should also have a solid understanding of the semantic
layout techniques as well as the JavaScript, JQuery, and Prototype (Alonso, Casati, Kuno,
& Machiraju, 2004). It is also required that the web
service developers have in-depth knowledge of HTML5, CSS, and DOM. They also
ought to be fluency in the Adobe CS and the associated front-end development
plus and experience in RIA technologies such as Google web service Toolkit,
AJAX, Flash, and Flex. The another vital requirement for the web service
developers is the knowledge and competence in the area of Web services such as
SOAP, JSON, open APIs, XML, and XML Schema (Curbera et al., 2002). They also need to be conversant and experienced with any of
the modern relational database management systems, experience with Eclipse, QA
tools, and SVN among other requirements.
Reflection
The iteration on web service development requirements was
well accomplished with the many objectives being realized. The researcher came
to learn from the research that a web service developer is an important
employee in any organization based on the responsibilities and task that are
vested in them. He also got to learn about the areas that he needed to work on
so as to become and remain competent as a web service developer. The many sites
that he visited online, the newspapers, information gotten from friends and
family members contained crucial information. The only thing that never went
well was that the researcher over-relied more on the online sources more than
the other sources. He plans to address that in the future research work.
Iteration
4 - Training
Plan
From the previous iteration, the researcher learned that
certification is very important for web service developers and that many
employers preferred the Oracle certified web service developer certification.
The researcher then plans to visit various sites including
https://coderanch.com/t/609329/certification/Study-material-Java-EE-Web to find
the study materials and then enroll for an online class for the certification
between September 9, 2016, to October 27, 2016. The researcher plans to have a
thorough insight into various areas of Oracle Certified Web Service Developer
including the area of XML Web Service Standards, the SOAP 1.2 standards, WSDL
and UDDI, JAXR, development of web services, JAX-WS, JSON, XML processing APIs,
REST, and SOAP among other crucial areas relevant to the web service
developer. The other areas that might be
paramount in this certification include J2EE Web services, security, general
design and architecture; the interoperability technologies for web services;
and endpoint design and architecture.
Action
On September 9, 2016, the researcher started with searching
online for the sites that contained the training for Oracle Certified Web
Service Developer. The researcher discovered that the certification with the
Oracle Systems Inc was the best since. Otherwise, the certification was based
on Oracle. The certification was also a good opportunity for the researcher
since he had the knowledge of Java thereby making it easy to grasp the training
concepts. The certification was not merely exam oriented, but it was meant to
give the researcher the desired practical skills in the area of web service
development particularly using Java technology.
In the latter site, the researcher got to get an in-depth
insight into all the areas that were being covered in the certification and
then on September 15, 2016; he enrolled in this class. The researcher tackled
every topic and used video tutorials to understand the way various tasks were
being executed. Those topics included the XML and SOAP Web 1.2 Web service
standards, JSON, SOAP, REST, and XML processing; JAXR; interoperability
technologies for web services, security, J2EE Web services, endpoint design and
architecture; and general design and architecture. In the morning, i.e.,
between 9 am and 11.50 am the researcher would attend the online classes and
then during the evening he would do own research as he also recapped the things
he had learned during the day. The researcher then attempted the examination
between October 20 and 27 to get the certification.
Observation
The researcher observed that with the basic skills in coding
in Java, it was easy to learn most of the Java fundamentals being taught in the
Oracle Certified Web Service Developer certified classes. He also observed that
the Java certification examinations are cautiously designed so as to make sure
that the student does not miss out on the Java essentials. The researcher
observed that the certifications are normally designed to give the students
practical skills that will make them be effective in their daily tasks in the
work environment (McGill
& Dixon, 2007).
The researcher also observes that achieving a good certification impacts one’s
credibility on their resume. Also, the skills in the web service development
have changed forever; for instance in the area of Java, in the past, it used to
be Web Components, Servlets, etc., but now we talk of SCJP, SCWCD, and SCEA (McIlraith &
Martin, 2003).
The researcher also observed that the area of Oracle
Certified Web Service Developer certification entailed much then he had
expected. While developing the web services, the developer is required to be
well versed with the knowledge of how to configure, package and implement the
Java EE web services (if using Java technology) as well a service clients such
as the description of the packaging formats that include jar., ear., .war,
annotations as well as the description settings. He needs to be well versed
with the web service development technologies for as many platforms as possible
so as to stand a high chance of getting employment (Carnevale, Rose, & Hanson, 2012). With just one certification, one
can beat many job applicants since many of them just have a college degree with
no additional certification. That is because the employers believe that the one
who has acquired the Java certifications has more pratical skills and job
experience compared to the one who has not (Wireschen, & Zhang, 2010).
Reflection
The iteration on training resulted in the researcher
acquiring vital skills that would make him competent in this area of web
service development. The researcher had
garnered much of the theoretical skills in this area, but through this
iteration, he got to advance those skills through the certification training.
The way that the researcher planned the iteration made him have the success
that he experienced. After undergoing training in the morning hour, the
researcher then revised those things he had learned as he also sought for
clarifications and other additional information. It also gave him a chance of
acquiring more knowledge concerning the areas of web service development, got
to prepare adequately for the subsequent classes and also the final exam. Also,
carrying out the tests online gave the researcher the knowledge of the areas
that would be tested in the final exam.
The trainers also handled every area of the Oracle Certified
Web Service Developer well thereby helping the researcher to garner important
skills to become a professional web service developer. The training also gave
the researcher the confidence to carry out any task related to the web service
development. However, one thing that did not auger well during this iteration
was that the researcher failed to involve experts as he had planned and only
relied on the Web. He thinks that involving those professionals in web service
development would have given him more knowledge than that acquired from the
Web.
References
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F., Kuno, H., & Machiraju, V. (2004). Web services. In Web Services (pp. 123-149). Springer Berlin
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Carnevale, A. P.,
Rose, S. J., & Hanson, A. R. (2012). Certificates: Gateway to gainful
employment and college degrees.
Clabby, J. (2002). Web services explained: Solutions
and applications for the real world. Prentice Hall Professiona
Curbera, F., Duftler,
M., Khalaf, R., Nagy, W., Mukhi, N., & Weerawarana, S. (2002). Unraveling
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Hall, D. T. (2004).
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Smither, J. W. (1999). Empowered self-development and continuous learning. Human Resource Management, 38(1), 3-15.
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(2002). Prerequisites to guarantee life-long employability. Personnel review, 31(1), 44-61.
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Zhang, G. (2010). Information technology certification value: An initial
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Rosson, M. B. (2008, September). What’s in a mashup? And why? Studying the
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Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in help writing nursing research paper if you need a similar paper you can place your order for customized papers.
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