C218 Task 3: Career Management Guide (With a Worked Example) – JQM4

By Dan Palmer, MBA · Academic strategy consultant for working adult learners · LinkedIn

Updated on: Sep 16, 2026

Task 1 asked you to pitch investors. Task 2 asked you to analyze six quarters of your own numbers. Task 3 asks you to turn the camera on yourself, and for a lot of working MBA students that’s the one that actually stalls a capstone that’s otherwise almost done. You’ve got the resume you haven’t touched since before grad school, a LinkedIn profile that still lists your old title, and three competencies to name and defend, all while still working full time and getting dinner on the table. This guide walks through WGU’s current Task 3 requirements section by section, with a full worked example so you can see what a finished submission looks like before you write your own.

A note on the example below. The worked example in this guide uses a fictitious MBA student, Jordan Ellis, built only to show what a complete Task 3 submission looks like. Your own competencies, SMART goal, and artifacts have to reflect your real career, since a generic or borrowed reflection is exactly what this task’s rubric is built to catch.

C218 Task 3 Assignment Prompt

Introduction

During the course of your MBA program, you developed a number of competencies that are meaningful in the workplace. Reflecting on your competencies, how they helped you during your program and the business simulation, and how they will support your career as you move forward is an appropriate transitional activity to undertake before you engage in your career and personal brand management.

Career and personal brand management are significant components of successful career growth and readiness. Career management is an ongoing, systematic process that involves thoughtful self-assessment, career exploration, planning, goal setting, and networking.

For this task, you will create a SMART career goal, enhance or develop a resume that markets your professional, academic, volunteer, and leadership experiences, and build a LinkedIn profile (or similar professional background page) that shows your various academic and professional skills and accomplishments. You will need to gather, upload, and provide reflection on three academic or professional artifacts that demonstrate your competencies as they align with your SMART career goal.

Note: Task 1, Task 2, and the simulation must be completed prior to submitting Task 3.

Requirements

Your submission must represent your original work and understanding of the course material. Most performance assessment submissions are automatically scanned through the WGU similarity checker. Students are strongly encouraged to wait for the similarity report to generate after uploading their work and then review it to ensure Academic Authenticity guidelines are met before submitting the fTle for evaluation. See Understanding Similarity Reports for more information.

Grammarly Note:

Professional Communication will be automatically assessed through Grammarly for Education in most  performance assessments before a student submits work for evaluation. Students are strongly encouraged to review the Grammarly for Education feedback prior to submitting work for evaluation, as the overall submission will not pass without this aspect passing. See  Use Grammarly for Education Effectively for more information.

Microsoft Files Note:

Write your paper in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) unless another Microsoft product, or pdf, is specified in the task directions. Tasks may not be submitted as cloud links, such as links to Google Docs, Google Slides, OneDrive, etc. All supporting documentation, such as screenshots and proof of experience, should be collected in a pdf ff le and submitted separately from the main ff le.For more information, please see Computer System and Technology Requirements

A. Explain how three competencies you developed throughout your MBA program facilitated your performance in the business simulation you completed for Task 1 and Task 2. Include specific details in your explanation.

Note: Course competencies can be found within each course.

1. Explain how each of these competencies could help you in the future as part of a business career.

B. Create a specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely (SMART) career

Note: Your SMART Career goal should be based on the combination of your self-assessment of your interests, skills and strengths, and overall career research. You are encouraged to use the attached “Career Planning Guide” as a resource in creating your SMART career goal.

C. Update and attach your resume (suggested length of 1-2 pages) as a separate word processing document, including each of the following criteria:

• • personal information (e.g., name, contact information)
  • education
  • work experience
  • skills

Note: You may contact the career services department using the “WGU Career and Professional Development,, web link to assist with your resume. Refer to the attached “Sample Resume Template,,and “Resume Building Guidelines,, for additional guidance while creating your resume.

D. Develop or update your LinkedIn profile (or similar professional background page) to effectively market your professional brand. Provide a PDF copy or screenshot copy of your professional background page, including each of the following completed sections:

• customized URL
• summary
• experience
• education

Note: You may refer to the attached “Personal Branding Worksheet” and “LinkedIn User Guide” as you develop or update your profile. You may also contact career services using the “WGU Career and Professional Development” web link to provide a professional background profile review. If using LinkedIn, refer to the “LinkedIn PDF Instructions” web link for help with downloading a profile.

E. Upload three academic or professional artifacts (e.g., professional certifications, professional presentations, professional awards or recognitions, professional memberships) as PDF attachments or screenshots to demonstrate the various competencies you have learned throughout your academic or employment journey.

1. Explain why you chose each artifact, which competencies the artifacts demonstrate, and how each artifact aligns to your career goals.

Note: The provided artifact files should clearly display your name.

F. Acknowledge sources, using in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized

G. Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission

C218 Task 3 Example

C218_Task 3_Example Click to Download

What C218 Task 3 actually asks for

Task 3 is the shortest of the three C218 deliverables on paper, but it’s the most personal. It only unlocks once Task 1, Task 2, and the simulation itself are complete, and it asks you to do three connected things: reflect on how three specific MBA competencies showed up in your simulation performance, set one SMART career goal, and back both with a current resume, an active LinkedIn (or similar professional) profile, and three real academic or professional artifacts that prove the competencies you’re claiming. It’s less about writing well and more about having your professional documentation actually current, which is exactly the part busy students tend to let slide during a program.

The rubric in plain terms

• Part A – Competencies developed: explain how three specific competencies from your MBA program showed up in your Task 1 and Task 2 simulation performance, with real detail behind each one.
• Part A1 – Future business career: explain how each of those same three competencies will help you going forward, not a new list, the same three carried into your career trajectory.
• Part B – SMART career goal: one goal that is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely, built from real self-assessment and career research.
• Part C – Resume: an up-to-date resume, one to two pages, attached as its own file, covering personal information, education, work experience, and skills.
• Part D – LinkedIn or professional background page: a current profile with a customized URL, summary, experience, and education sections completed, submitted as a PDF or screenshot.
• Part E – Three artifacts: three academic or professional artifacts (a certification, a presentation, a professional membership, an award), each with an explanation of why you chose it, which competencies it demonstrates, and how it connects to your SMART goal.
• Parts F and G: in-text citations and a reference list for anything quoted, paraphrased, or summarized, and professional communication clean enough to clear Grammarly for Education before you submit.

Why this task derails busy students specifically

Every other C218 task asks you to analyze data that already exists inside the simulation. Task 3 asks you to produce or update three things that live outside it entirely: a resume, a LinkedIn profile, and physical proof of your professional accomplishments. If you’re managing this program around a full-time job, a commute, and kids who need you present in the evening, those three things are usually the most neglected parts of your professional life, not because you don’t have the material, but because updating a resume has never once felt as urgent as the report due Friday.

The fix isn’t to rush the writing faster. It’s to separate the task into what can be batched in small windows and what needs one longer sitting:

1. Batch the easy wins first. Locating your three artifacts, a certificate, an old presentation deck, a membership confirmation email, takes fifteen minutes and can happen on a lunch break. Do this before you write a single paragraph.
2. Update your resume and LinkedIn in one sitting, since both draw on the same underlying career history and it’s faster to update them together than to context-switch back later. WGU’s own Career and Professional Development office can review both if you want a second set of eyes before you attach them.
3. Write the competency and SMART goal sections last, once the two supporting documents are current, so what you write in Part A and Part B actually matches what’s on the resume you’re attaching, rather than describing a version of your career that resume doesn’t yet reflect.
4. Treat it like three tasks a day rather than one long task. Artifacts one evening, resume and LinkedIn the next, competencies and SMART goal the third. Three small, finishable sessions get a working parent through Task 3 more reliably than one long weekend block that competes with everything else on the calendar.

Writing Part A: competencies developed

Choose three competencies you can genuinely point to inside your own Task 1 investor presentation and c218 task 2 business analysis, not three you think sound impressive. A claim needs a specific decision, number, or outcome attached to it, the same standard Task 2 held your financial ratios to. “I improved my financial analysis skills” is a fact with nothing behind it; “the ROI calculation I built in Task 2, and the pushback I had to defend it against in Task 1’s investor pitch, is what actually taught me to stress-test a valuation assumption before presenting it” is evidence.

Part A1 then asks you to carry those same three competencies forward, not introduce new ones, into how they’ll shape your actual career, which is why it pays to pick competencies you can genuinely connect to where you want to go next.

Writing Part B: the SMART career goal

This is the one part of Task 3 that gets penalized hardest for vagueness. Each of the five SMART letters has to be addressed explicitly, not implied by the surrounding paragraph.

Specific: name the exact role, title, or outcome. “Grow my career” fails this; “move from IT Operations Manager to Director of IT Operations” passes.

Measurable: name the metric that proves you got there. A title change, a salary figure, a scope of responsibility, something you could point to and say yes, this happened.

Achievable: explain why this is realistic given where you sit today, not aspirational in a way that requires ignoring your actual timeline or resources.

Relevant: connect the goal back to the competencies from Part A. This is the section that makes Parts A and B read as one continuous argument instead of two disconnected assignments.

Time-bound: a real date or a real window, not “eventually” or “in the future.”

Base the goal on genuine self-assessment of your interests, skills, and strengths, combined with actual research into the role you’re naming. WGU’s attached Career Planning Guide is built for exactly this step, and it’s worth using even if you’re confident you already know your next move; naming it in your reflection also gives you something concrete to cite.

Writing Part D: the LinkedIn or professional background page

If your LinkedIn has been sitting untouched since before you started the program, this is the part of Task 3 that takes the longest despite looking the smallest on the rubric. WGU wants four sections completed: a customized URL, a summary, your experience, and your education, submitted as a PDF or screenshot. Update the summary last, after you’ve written Part A and B, since the strongest LinkedIn summaries echo the same competencies and career direction your written reflection already argues for, rather than reading like a separate document written by a different version of you.

Writing Part E: the three artifacts

Choose three real academic or professional artifacts, a certification, a presentation you delivered, an award, a professional membership, and for each one explain why you chose it, which competencies it demonstrates, and how it connects to your SMART goal. The strongest artifact choices are ones that already tie back to Part A’s competencies rather than introducing an unrelated fourth skill.

If you delivered a version of your c218 task 1 investor presentation at your actual job, or adapted it into a real budget or business case proposal, that overlap is worth naming directly, since it shows the capstone work translating into your actual career rather than staying contained inside the simulation. Make sure your name is clearly visible on every artifact file WGU asks for that.

The Jordan Ellis worked example

C218_Task3_Example (Click to Download)

The example below continues the same fictitious capstone journey used in Gradevia’s C218 Task 1 and C218 Task 2 guides. Jordan Ellis is a fictitious IT Operations Manager, working full time, pursuing the WGU MBA while running NovaCraft Furniture Co. through the Task 1 and Task 2 simulation work. None of the career details below describe a real person; they exist only to show how a finished Task 3 reflection reads once every section is filled in with real specificity instead of placeholder language. The full example is attached to this guide as a Word document.

Sample competency (Part A): “Financial Analysis and Decision-Making, developed directly through the ROI and valuation work in my Task 2 business analysis, where I had to defend a 12% discount rate assumption against a stockholder audience that immediately asked what happens if that rate is wrong.”

Sample future career link (Part A1): “The same discipline of stress-testing an assumption before presenting it is exactly what I’ll need managing vendor contracts and capital requests as a Director of IT Operations, where a bad assumption costs real budget, not a simulation score.”

Sample SMART goal (Part B): “Within 12 months of completing the WGU MBA, transition from IT Operations Manager to Director of IT Operations at a comparable mid-size organization, with oversight of vendor contracts exceeding $2M annually and a direct team of six or more, measured by a signed offer letter reflecting that title and scope.”

Sample artifact (Part E): “The investor presentation I built for my C218 Task 1 simulation, which I adapted into an actual budget proposal I presented to my department’s leadership team, demonstrating the same Strategic Communication competency named in Part A carried directly into my real job.”

Open the attached document to see all three competencies, the full SMART goal breakdown across all five criteria, and all three artifact explanations written out in complete form.

Common C218 Task 3 mistakes

1. Naming competencies with no simulation evidence behind them. A skill claimed without a specific decision or outcome from Task 1 or Task 2 reads as unsupported.
2. Introducing new competencies in Part A1 instead of carrying the same three forward. The rubric wants continuity between what you developed and what helps your career next, not a second list.
3. A SMART goal missing one of the five criteria, almost always measurability or the time-bound element, since those two are the easiest to imply instead of state outright.
4. A resume that doesn’t match the career story your reflection just told. If Part A and B describe a specific trajectory, the attached resume needs to visibly support it.
5. An incomplete LinkedIn profile. Missing a customized URL or a blank summary section is an easy, avoidable miss on a rubric row that only asks for four completed sections.
6. Artifacts that aren’t genuinely academic or professional, or that arrive without your name visible on the file, both of which are explicit requirements.
7. Artifact explanations that describe what the artifact is instead of why it was chosen. The rubric wants the reasoning and the competency link, not a summary of the document itself.
8. Skipping citations entirely. Anything quoted, paraphrased, or summarized, including a referenced framework or a WGU resource, still needs an in-text citation and a matching reference entry.
9. Submitting before Grammarly for Education clears. The task doesn’t pass without it, so review that feedback before your deadline, not after.

How C218 Task 3 fits with the rest of the capstone

Task 3 only opens once c218 task 1, c218 task 2 wgu, and the simulation itself are behind you, which makes it the natural point to look back at the whole capstone rather than just the assignment in front of you. For the investor-facing task that starts the sequence, see the C218 Task 1 investor presentation guide and the C218 Task 1 guide and example; for the financial analysis task that comes before this one, see the C218 Task 2 guide; and for how the three tasks and the simulation connect as one course, see the WGU C218 MBA capstone guide or the broader WGU MBA course guides hub.

FAQ

Do I need financial data from the simulation for c218 task 3? No. Task 3 references your Task 1 and Task 2 experience as evidence for your competencies, but it doesn’t ask you to recalculate ratios, valuation, or ROI. It’s a career reflection, not a financial one.

Does my SMART goal have to be related to the simulation or to NovaCraft-style companies? No. Your SMART goal should be a real professional goal tied to your actual career, not a goal about the simulated company. The simulation connects in through Part A and A1, where you explain how the competencies it built support the goal you’re setting.

Can I use my real job and employer in wgu c218 task 3? Yes, and you generally should. Naming your real role, your real employer (by category if you’d rather not name it directly), and your real career trajectory is what makes the Achievable and Relevant criteria easy to satisfy convincingly.

Do I need citations in c218 task 3? Only for content that’s quoted, paraphrased, or summarized, a named framework, a cited statistic, a referenced WGU resource. The rest of the reflection is first-person and doesn’t require outside sourcing.

What if my three artifacts don’t perfectly match my three competencies? They don’t need to line up one-to-one. The rubric asks you to explain which competencies each artifact demonstrates, and one strong artifact can reasonably support more than one competency if the explanation is genuine.

Where this leaves you

Task 3’s real ask is simple even when the rubric reads long: name three competencies you can prove, connect them to a real goal, and make sure your resume, profile, and artifacts back all of it up. Treat it as three manageable sessions rather than one long one, and it fits around a full-time job and a family more easily than either of the two tasks before it did.

If you’re a working MBA student trying to fit this around a job, a commute, and kids who need you present in the evening, and you want help figuring out which competencies actually hold up or getting your resume current before the deadline, message Gradevia on WhatsApp at +1 (564) 544-6924. Send over what you’ve got, even half-finished, and we’ll help you build the rest around it.

This guide is written for academic coaching and assignment support purposes. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Western Governors University. Course codes, task letters, and rubric language referenced above are drawn from WGU’s publicly issued task overview for C218 Task 3 as of September 2026 and may change between terms.