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What Is a Self Assessment?
Using Self Assessment in Career Planning
Know Yourself - Product Knowledge:
The first critical step in job search planning involves gathering information about yourself - self assessment - to assist you in making a decision about a career. Assessing yourself is a lifelong process. Each experience in your career is a career builder, that is yours to keep forever. Your goals may change as you learn more about yourself and your values, needs, objectives, and other areas of interest. This initial focus will help you narrow your options and target appropriate employers.Each and every one of us has our own individual, unique set of skills, talents and ambitions. Identifying one's skills and talents is essential to your success. A skill is something you've learned to do. A talent is something you've been born with, or at least that you seem naturally qualified to do. It's important to recognize the difference between the two.
You may be skilled at something and still not find it interesting. Chances are, however, if you are naturally talented at something, there will usually be a corresponding link between that particular talent and your interests. Put another way: you are more apt to enjoy doing what you do well naturally than what you have simply been taught to do.
Self assessment
You may be skilled at something and still not find it interesting. Chances are, however, if you are naturally talented at something, there will usually be a corresponding link between that particular talent and your interests. Put another way: you are more apt to enjoy doing what you do well naturally than what you have simply been taught to do.
Value Inventories
Value inventories will ask you to answer questions like the following:
- Is a high salary important to you?
- Is it important for your work to involve interacting with people?
- Is it important for your work to make a contribution to society?
- Is having a prestigious job important for you?
Your values are possibly the most important thing to consider when you're choosing an occupation. If you don't take your values into account when planning your career, there's a good chance you'll dislike your work and therefore not succeed in it. For example, someone who needs to have autonomy in his work would not be happy in a job where every action is decided by someone else.
There are two types of values: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic values are related to the work itself and what it contributes to society. Extrinsic values include external features, such as physical setting and earning potential.
What Are Work Values Throughout your life you acquired a set of values — beliefs and ideas that are important to you. For example you may believe that one should always be honest or that one must always be a loyal friend. You live your life according to this set of values. In order to have a happy, successful and fulfilling life, you must act upon your values, both in your personal life and at work. Taking your values into account when you choose a career could be the most important factor that determines whether you will or won't be satisfied with that aspect of your life. Clarifying your work values, that subset of values that relate to your career, is essential. Your work values are both intrinsic, relating to the actual tasks involved in practicing a particular occupation, and extrinsic, relating to the by-products of an occupation. An intrinsic value might be helping others, while an example of an extrinsic value is earning a lot of money. Interest Inventories Interest inventories are also frequently used in career planning. When you complete an interest inventory you are asked to answer a series of questions regarding your (surprise) interests. E.K. Strong, Jr. pioneered the development of interest inventories. He found, through data he gathered about people's likes and dislikes of a variety of activities, objects, and types of persons, that people in the same career (and satisfied in that career) had similar interests. Dr. John Holland and others provided a system of matching interests with one or more of six types: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional. He then matched these types with occupations. The results of your interest inventory are compared against the results of this study to see where you fit in — are your interests similar to those of a police officer or to those of an accountant? A very popular interest inventory is the Strong Interest Inventory (SII), formerly known as the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory. The SII is administered by a career development professional, who also scores it, and interprets the results. If you want to try using an interest inventory on your own, a low cost option is the Self-Directed Search (SDS), by John Holland. You can take it online for a small fee.
Click here to go to the assessment page.
After completing the assessment, you will receive a printable report containing a list of occupations that most closely match your interests. Skills Assessment When deciding what field to enter, you need to determine what skills you have. You should look at what you're good at, as well as what you enjoy doing. You may be very adept at a particular skill, but despise every second you spend using it. Generally speaking, though, you usually enjoy what you do well. While you're assessing your skills, you should also consider the time you are willing to spend on acquiring more advanced or new skills. A question you could ask yourself is this — if a career holds all the qualities I find appealing but it takes X years to prepare for it, would I be willing and able to make this time commitment? Additional Considerations When going through the self assessment process it's important to take into account other considerations that will influence your career choice. For example, you should consider your family responsibilities and your ability to pay for education or training. You also have to remember that self assessment is the first step in the career planning process, not the last. After completing this phase, you have to go on to the next one, which entails exploring the options you have before you. With your self assessment results in mind, you will have to next evaluate a variety of occupations to see if there's a match. Just because your self assessment indicates that a particular occupation is suitable for someone with your interests, skills, and values, it doesn't mean it is best for you. Similarly, just because your self assessment doesn't indicate that a particular occupation is appropriate for you, it doesn't mean you should discount it entirely. You just need to do some research to learn more about it.
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