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Career Center > The Career Planning Process
Step One: Self Assessment
During a recent survey employers were asked, "What advice would you give to students as they begin to select a career?" The most frequent reply was "Know yourself."
The very first step in career (and life!) planning is learning about yourself. Self-awareness comes from identifying and analyzing the personal factors involved in choosing a career path. A job search is simply a marketing campaign with YOU as the product. In order to sell yourself to an employer or graduate school admissions counselor, you must know yourself. Carefully consider the following factors:
Interests
The most heavily weighted factor in career satisfaction is whether or not you like the work you are doing. Work environments and people can be described according to their interest patterns, and many career assessment inventories are based on interest factors. Do you like working with people? If so, how specifically would you like to work with them? Are you happy dealing with lots of facts and information? Do you want to see tangible results for your efforts?
Work Values
A work value is a principle related to worth, excellence, importance; a quality held in high regard. Your value system is expressed daily through your living and working. Is it important for you to work where cooperation is important or do you like competition? Do you need creativity and self-expression in your work? Is financial gain important? Are you willing to take risks? The most important factor in your career decisions will be the values by which you choose to live - examine them carefully!
Skills
A skilled person is able to do some things well because of talent, training, and practice. Some skills are very job specific while others may be transferred from one job to another. Self-management skills are personal in nature and help you relate to others and perform a job successfully. Identify your skills by examining your past accomplishments. Which skills do you use now, which do you want to continue to use, and which would you like to develop more?
Life/Work Roles
You assume various positions in social groups and each carries a pattern of expected behaviors. You may be a child, a manager, a teacher, a club president...at the same time! Which roles do you occupy now and which do you enjoy the most? What are the characteristics of the role that provides you the greatest satisfaction?
Personal Ethics
The work world will require you to apply a system of moral principles with respect to how you conduct your business, relate to other people, and decide what is right and wrong. All organizations operate from an ethical framework and it is wise to find an organization compatible with your framework. When your work behavior is consistent with your ethics, you have achieved integrity.
Personal Boundaries
It is important to consider how you want to spend your off-the-job time. Non-work activities have their own rewards and you may want to consider how much time these will require when exploring career options. Other living environment factors will be your preference for geographical surroundings, climate, community size, proximity to friends and family, income needs, physical limitations, and educational opportunities.
The Career Center fosters self-understanding in several ways:
- Strong Interest and Skills Confidence Inventory explores the relationship between interests, skills, and career/educational planning. The Strong customizes information on personal styles in work, learning, leadership and risk taking, and provides steps a student can take to identify and evaluate career and educational options.
- Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: explores the diverse ways that people prefer to direct their attention, process information, make decisions, and adopt varied life/work styles.
- Printed materials that focus on career planning issues are available for loan from the Career Center Library.
Self-assessment Exercise
The following questions will help you develop a clearer picture of who you are. Take your time and be honest with your answers. This self-discovery process will leave you feeling more confident about presenting yourself to others.
- How important is money to you?
- How would you describe your value system?
- Do you have enough education to meet your objectives?
- If you could do anything you would like for the next 10 years, what would you do?
- Do you enjoy work?
- How would you describe the people with whom you like to associate?
- Do you have a definite goal in life? If so, what is it?
- What are your fears, if any?
- How important is "family" to you?
- Is job security important to you?
- Is status important to you?
- Do you prefer "inside" or "outside" work?
- Are you satisfied with life?
- Do you prefer to work alone or with others in a project?
- Do you prefer to manage or let others manage?
- How important is your career to your enjoyment of life?
- Would you like to work for a large or small organization?
- Where does your major satisfaction come from in life?
- How is your health?
- How important are leisure-time activities to you?
- Do you prefer a desk job or one requiring physical activity?
- Where would you most like to live?
- What are your favorite hobbies?
- What would you describe as ideal working conditions?
- Are you a risk taker?
- What are your best qualities?
- To which job would you like to aspire?
- Do you have a clear idea of the career path you would like to follow?
- Do you like to make decisions?
- Is power important to you?
- Is recognition important to you?
- What kind of lifestyle do you want?
- Are you a humanitarian at heart?
- How important to you is being useful?
- Do you like to be in charge of an operation?
- Are you a competitor?
- Do you like to work with numbers?
- How do you react in a crisis?
- Do you prefer to work with your ideas or with the ideas of others?
- Can you present facts to support your point of vision clearly?
- Whom do you admire?
- Do you worry much?
- Do you ever feel "stressed out"?
- What area of employment has the greatest attraction to you: business, government, or education? Why?
- Do you consider yourself a positive thinker?
- Are you careless about your personal appearance?
- Do you procrastinate often?
- Generally, are you satisfied with the way things are going?
- Do you have an exact plan for projects that you do?
- Do you enjoy working with a computer?
- Would you like a job where people come to you for advice?
- Do you like change?
- Can you control your excitement and nervousness in a crisis?
- Do you admire high-quality workmanship?
- Do you like detail?
- Do you have a good memory?
- Can you move from one task to another easily?
- Would you like a job that has uncertainty on a day-to-day basis?
- Why did you major in the discipline you chose?
- Do you prefer to make your own work schedule?
- Do you prefer a job where you will receive extensive training?
- Do you want to get an advanced degree?
Source: John Shingleton, Career Planning: A Guide for Today's Graduates.
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