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Self Assessment
Finding a career that allows you to live and express yourself fully (your values, interests, preferences, abilities, and skills) is dependent on you doing an honest and thorough self-assessment.
Many people believe that they know themselves well. While that may be so, there are several counselling tools that use unique conceptual frameworks that can help you itemize and articulate aspects of yourself in ways that can be correlated with careers and used in job applications and interviews.
By examining the following aspects of yourself, you will discover a rich resource of information, from which you can develop a comprehensive self-portrait that will be essential in your career decision-making process.
Personality Preferences
Finding total work satisfaction and enjoyment requires that, besides identifying the most suitable career, you complete an additional step. Some individuals invest time, energy, and money in order to obtain the education and training required to gain entry into a career only to become disappointed once they have been employed for a while. They begin to question their original choice.
What contributes to the growing dissatisfaction? It may well be that one’s personality preferences do not match the workplace environment, that the leadership/supervisory style changed with the new management, or that the original job description and responsibilities, which at first were rewarding, changed.
Knowing your personality preferences and how they relate to the world of work will enable you to consciously choose not only a career, but an appropriate environment as well. While there are several tools to assist you with this process, the tool that is commonly used at the university level is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
Personal preferences based on four dimensions:
Based on Carl Jung’s theory of personality, the MBTI questionnaire provides a conceptual framework to help you identify your preferences on four dimensions:
- the environment that energizes you
- the manner in which you organize your life
- the kind of information on which you focus
- your preferred style of making decisions
For a thorough assessment of your own preferences, consult The University of Winnipeg Counselling Services in order to complete the MBTI questionnaire (small fee is charged), or explore some of the web sites listed below on psychological type.
Sixteen Type Descriptions:
The Center for Applications of Psychological Type (CAPT) lists a good description of each of the 16 MBTI personality types.
http://www.capt.org/The_MBTI_Instrument/Type_Descriptions.cfm
Type and Career:
Wondering how your personality type will fit into a particular career? Go to Workplace and Careers on the CAPT site for further information.
http://www.capt.org/Using_Type_Workplace.cfm
Books:
If you click on the title or cover image, you will be taken to the library record of the book. If the book's content is available online, it will be noted and linked to below the description.
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Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type
Myers, Isabel Briggs with Peter B. Myers. (c1995)
Available in the University of Winnipeg library, call number BF 698.3 M94 1995.
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Do What You Are
Tieger, Paul D. and Barbara Barron-Tieger. (c1995).
Available in the University of Winnipeg library, call numbers BF 698.9 03T54 1995.
Available in the University of Winnipeg Career Resource Centre, call numbers BF 698.9 O3T54 2001.
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Life Types
Hirsh, Sandra Krebs and Kummerow. (c1989).
New York: Warner Books.
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Life Experiences
When trying to determine a career path, it is important to consider your life experiences. Many of the things that we do help turn us to one path or another. These life experiences include:
- Work and volunteer experience
- Education and training
- Recreational activities and hobbies
- Family members' careers
- Career beliefs and myths
An encouraging book to read that explores this topic in a humorous manner is Roadtrip Nation, by Mike Marriner and Nathan Gebhard with Joanne Gordon. it documents the trip taken by the authors to discover their paths in life, through interviews with top leaders. It is available in the Career Resource Centre, call number HF 5381 M359 2003.
Values
A major influence on one's future job satisfaction is finding a work environment that is congruent with one's values system. While your major values remain somewhat stable throughout your lifetime, others will continue to grow and evolve and be influenced by your continuous life experiences.
Seldom does a career satisfy all of one's values; nevertheless, you can increase the likelihood of job satisfaction by ensuring that the major values expressed in your workplace are harmonious with your own primary valued beliefs. You can easily meet your other values through hobbies, clubs, and other personal experiences.
Values That Motivate You
Below is a suggested short list of values to consider. Remember that this list is just a tool to help you start thinking about what is important. Rate these values on a scale from 1-5. Add values that are meaningful to you. As you go through the list, jot down any careers that come to mind and seem appealing. Later, research them to get more information on the type of environment in which that career is typically performed. Does that environment seem to exhibit similar values to your own?
List of Values
- Financial reward
- Family and friends
- Location (indoors/outdoors, city/rural, international)
- Friendships at work
- Contribution to society
- Helping others
- Recognition, status, respect
- Intellectual stimulation
- Decision making, leadership
- Security
- Risk taking, challenge
- Work independently
- Work as a member of a team
- Room for creative expression
- Variety of tasks
- Flexible work environment
Exercises to Help You Identify Values
Exercise 1 Imagine a day on your ideal job. In what type of environment and activities would you be involved?
Exercise 2 If you won the lottery and thought it would still be meaningful to be working, what activities and work would you do?
Interests
Whether you have numerous interests or only one primary focus, the process of deciding on a career can be perplexing and frustrating if you don't know how to correlate your interests with careers.
Six Occupational Themes
Fortunately, this process of correlating interests with careers was made easier by a conceptual framework that was developed by John Holland, Ph.D. He identified six occupational themes. Each theme defines corresponding interests, values, and personality traits characteristic of people who endorse it.
An individual will generally identify one to three of the themes as characteristic of him/herself. Given that all occupations have been coded by theme(s), from one to three, knowing your own preferences can help you to identify one or more career possibilities. For a general understanding of the themes that represent your interests, here is a description of each of the six themes.
Counselling and Career Services Offers the Strong Interest Inventory (SII) based on John Holland's theory.
1. REALISTIC Constructing, Building
Describes individuals who are rugged and enjoy work that employs their physical strength. They tend to like occupations in which they can use, operate, or design tools, machines, and equipment. Their leisure time is characterized by similar desires. They enjoy outdoor activities that are risky and require physical stamina such as hunting, camping, fishing, bodybuilding and operating recreational vehicles. Career clusters are engineering, military, forestry, farming, and construction.
2. INVESTIGATIVE Scientific Researching
Independent and original, these individuals seek work that allows them to use their intellectual ability to think critically, write, and solve mathematical problems. The leisure time activities that they prefer and enjoy also engage the use of their mental abilities; for example: computers, sailing, scuba diving, chess, canoeing, reading, and lectures. Careers cluster in the sciences, in areas such as technology, teaching, and research.
3. CONVENTIONAL Organizing, Managing Data
Valuing economic security, these individuals are conservative and practical both in their private life and at work. They prefer routine, repetitive work and their organizational and clerical skills make them experts at maintaining office procedures such as keeping records, scheduling, writing reports, and organizing data. During leisure time you will find them with tour groups visiting museums, exhibits and sites, collecting items, doing crossword and jigsaw puzzles. Occupations in auditing, accounting, office management, and data coordinator/analyst are just a few that attract these conscientious individuals.
4. ENTERPRISING Leading, Selling, Managing
Describing themselves as confident, ambitious, competitive, and sociable, these individuals value political and economic arenas in which they can use their verbal and leadership skills in work that involves sales, management, chairing committees, and leading. In their leisure time you will find them as spectators or competitors in either team or one-on-one sports, involved in political activities, or in competitive activities such as juried art/craft shows, card games, etc. Careers in management, finances, buying, sales, and corporate directing entice these individuals.
5. ARTISTIC Expressing
Indentifiable by their nonconforming, expressive, complex, and independent personalities, these individuals seek out careers that allow them to express their imagination and creativity through language, music, dance, and the visual arts. Enjoying like-minded people, their leisure time is spent attending arts events, touring galleries, reading or engaging in their own creative work. Careers cluster in the fine and applied arts, journalism, film, teaching, and law.
6. SOCIAL Helping, Teaching
These are friendly, empathic individuals, who are concerned enough about others to take responsible, humanistic action, and want work that offers opportunities to help, heal, teach, or train. In their free time they get involved in group activities such as participating or volunteering in community activities, entertaining friends and family, dancing, and sporting events. Careers in the helping professions, teaching, and the ministry meet these criteria.
Skills
While you may completely aware of the majority of your skills and abilities, there may be a few that you have not considered. These could be talents inherent in your nature or skills you acquired through volunteer work or recreational activities and have taken for granted or minimized their importance in the world of work. It is important to itemize all of your gifts, skills and abilities, given that the articulation of one or more may be the key to being chosen for a position over someone else with equivalent qualifications and experience.
The University of Winnipeg Counselling Services Department is an excellent resource for getting assistance with this process. There are numerous questionnaires available to help you identify your skills and abilities and evaluate your level of expertise.
For further assistance with the identification of your preferences, values, and abilities as they relate to the world of work and careers, we encourage you to speak with a counsellor. In conjunction with discussions, we use inventories and additoinal questionnaires to help you synthesize this information.
Home » Career Planning » Career Exploration» Self Assessment
Last updated March 2009
The University of Winnipeg Counselling and Career Services
Basement of Graham Hall, 0GM06
Phone: 204.786.9863 | Fax: 204.779.0961
ccs@uwinnipeg.ca
Open 8:30 am - 4:30 pm
Monday to Friday
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The University of Winnipeg
Counselling and Career Services
Graham Hall, 0GM06
p: 204.786.9863
f: 204.774.0961
ccs@uwinnipeg.ca
Open 8:30 am - 4:30 pm
Monday to Friday
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