Assessing Your Career
Assessing Your Career
WHAT IS A CAREER ASSESSMENT
A career assessment is a prominent part of your career discovery. It is a process of assessing your personality traits, strengths, talents and values. By conducting a career assessment in these four areas you are likely to discover which career fits you best. The higher a career scores in all four areas, the more assured you can be that it is one that suits you the most.
The information you gather from assessing your career should assist you in clarifying who you really are, what you can do so well and what you would like to do. Identified as the cornerstone of one’s career growth and development, career assessment should lead you to greater self-knowledge and to a place where you can collectively look at all the options available to you and make well-informed decisions. Research has shown that people who know themselves well are better prepared and are in a better position to make rational decisions towards a successful future. Career assessment should help you gain insights, clarity, and direction. You should also have a general overview of your skills, interests, personality, values, needs, career beliefs and the obstacles you may encounter along the way as you build the career you love.
By understanding yourself better and having an idea of the type of work and work environment which will be a great fit for you, you already possess an edge that sets you apart from the majority of people looking for work without self-knowledge. You know exactly what to target and maximize on in order to move your career forward. When you are well-prepared you are less likely to rely on chance to move your career forward.
YOUR CAREER ASSESSMENT TOOLS
There are various formal and informal career assessment tools that can be used to help assess your career. Formal career assessment tools such as the Myer Briggs Type Indicator test is one of the most well-known assessment tools around the world. However, an informal assessment with simple questionnaires and other creative methods, have also been proven to be successful in assessing one’s career. In this course, we will use both tools to help you get a broader and inclusive understanding of your abilities and possible opportunities to pursue.
TEN QUESTIONS TO ASSESS YOUR CAREER TODAY
1. What experience do I want to gain from my work?
(include how you want to feel, what outcome you want to have/receive as you perform in that role/function)
2. What do I want to improve or change the most in my current work situation?
(think of a scenario where you were working and really realised that there were aspects of how you did the job that you needed to change. ie doing other people's work, taking on too much, taking initiative, be more assertive ....
3. What are my most preferred work problems to solve?
( People are different. we all thrive in specific areas which is incredible and because of that we direct positive energy towards tasks that we can easily solve. So do you like to peruse reports all day long and then present them to your team? Do you like to crunching numbers instead? Are you the person on team who enjoys planning and monitoring if work is being done? Be as specific as possible and you will see that there are specific problems you can solve so well at work and other you can get by.)
4. What are my least preferred work problems to solve?
(The reason why you need to detect least problems you like to solve is so that you can avoid taking roles and responsibilities that clearly require you to work 50% and more on tasks you really dont like. It is not by chance that you will not do well.)
5. What is / would be my most preferred role?
(You will be asked this question over and over by recruiters or friends you want a referral from. Have a variety of roles you identify with, but make sure they align with who you are and what you can do.)
6. What are the key strengths that I want to apply the most at work in general and for my next assignment?
(After you have taken this strengths and weakness test below look at which strengths you would like to work the most within your next role. The same applies to your weaknesses. https://richardstep.com/richardstep-strengths-weaknesses-aptitude-test/free-aptitude-test-find-your-strengths-weaknesses-online-version/
7. I am most interested in learning or improving the following skills or abilities :
(What areas of your professional development would you like to improve? The best way to have a clear overview is to look at how your current field is evolving and how you would like to position yourself at the top. Improve skills in relevance to what the market needs or what you are passionate about)
8. In general, my work interests mostly have to do with 1 or 2 of the following categories:
( Examples human resources or event planning; data analytics or software development; making or fixing things)
9. If there was away, I would love to connect my work with the following activities outside work interests:
(Examples: Volunteering your skills to youth clubs or non-profit organizations.)
10. What would I want the impact of my career to be?
(It is okay for now if you are unsure of the impact you want to make with your career. However, it is something worth thinking about and to be consciously planned towards.)
What you have just done with these questions is to evaluate the details of your career and how it fits so well with who you are. The type of experience you would like to get from work shows a glimpse of light in which industry and job function you can thrive in. The improvement you need to make asks you to reflect as you begin to chart a new direction. If you have received some feedback at work, you could pair your own analysis and that which you received and see if there is a match. If you want to go the extra mile, ask your coworkers or manager for some feedback.
The types of problems you like to solve at work have just shown you why you thrive in certain areas and why you dont in others. However because you cannot really predict if those problems will present themselves in your new role, what you need to do is develop a coping mechanism on how to deal with tasks you dont enjoy working on. You can also now speak in interviews boldly about what you actually love to work on.
Strengths and weaknesses are the cues to introducing yourself. A lot of the time, people dont know what to say about themselves in interviews of networking events because clearly they know less about who they really are and what they are good or not at. How can you use them?
here is an example ( My name is Kave and I am a people's person and have been working in recruitment for the last four years. I came to notice that I thrive well when working in an environment where I am surrounded by people but also where I was allowed to voice my ideas and opinions. For that anytime I am ready to speak at company events or team meetings. I have a dealbreaker though!! I really am not at my happiest when staring at numbers and computer all day.)
The best insights about ourselves can only come through ourselves.
Try it and let us know how it goes for you.
Submit your answers to your coach for a review, but most importantly to give them an insight into your current state.
Now that we have assessed your current career/work status, we can move on to another fundamental aspect of your career discovery.