Library Subject Guides
Learning how to capture, reflect on and evidence your experiences and skills will support you in your ongoing development, prepare you for future applications for employment or further study and help you manage your career over your entire working life. This guide provides information and tools to assist you in this.
Reflecting on an experience is a way of evaluating your own reactions and capabilities. It can help you to learn from your experiences, improve your approaches in the future and evidence your skills and strengths to others. It can also boost your confidence and make you feel good about your achievements! Plus it's a great way to impress employers, as Iain Menneer, Chief Executive Officer of Animalcare Group PLC tells us, "Employers are looking for something quite special in a graduate, someone who has gone beyond their studies, is very proactive and can reflect on their experiences."
These resources are aimed at everyone, but will be particularly useful for students who want to do some or all of the following:
"Employability skills" is a term you will hear and see often at university. These are the skills that many employers look for when recruiting and a student exhibiting many of these qualities will have an advantage over those who do not.
You can find out more about the skills, strengths and capabilities sought by employers using the following resources.
Reflection goes beyond just a description of an event or situation. Simple description doesn’t pose any questions or offer any thoughts on what happened or why.
To reflect on an activity or experience you need to ‘stand back from the event’, ask questions about what happened and offer your thoughts, answers and conclusions. A reflective approach is useful as it will help you to analyse your behaviour (how you approached the task), consider the positives and also the areas to address for improvement in the future.
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It is not sufficient simply to have an experience in order to learn. Without reflecting upon this experience it may quickly be forgotten, or its learning potential lost. It is from the feelings and thoughts emerging from this reflection that generalisations or concepts can be generated. And it is generalisations that allow new situations to be tackled effectively. ”
Many different models and approaches have been suggested for reflection. One approach that can help you structure your reflection is the Gibbs model below:
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Description What happened? |
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Action Plan If it rose again, what would you do? |
Gibbs' Reflective Cycle |
Feelings What were you thinking and feeling? |
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Conclusion What else could you have done? |
Evaluation What was good and bad about the experience? |
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Analysis What else can you make of the situation? |
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Reflective writing exercisesImprove your reflective writing skills by having a go at the two exercises below - click on a blue box to start an exercise:
Being able to describe your skills, strengths and capabilities to others, and evidence them with examples, is a really critical skill to develop as it will support you in making applications for work experience or employment, or further study.
You can use the well known 'CAR' model to help you do this. This encourages you to talk about your experiences in a way that is valued by employers. C-A-R stands for Context, Action, Result:
The video below explains this further.
Choose one of your skills, strengths or capabilities, and have a go at answering the questions below.
You can draw on any example. This could include an example from your academic studies, college life, sports clubs and societies, volunteering, campus events, internships and work experience. Think about examples you might use with an employer as this is good preparation for future job applications/interviews.
You may be also be asked to use reflective writing in your academic studies and assignments. The guide linked below provides a range of guidance and resources to support you. The guide also contains additional resources that you may find useful in preparing for job/further study applications.
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