Career Self-Assessment
Where are you right now?
Evaluating your current Interests, Skills, Values, and Personality will give you a good start on your career planning process.
Interests: The questions in an interest inventory ask about your likes and dislikes regarding various activities. What makes you happy? If you had a spare moment, what would you do?
- Do you like to paint or draw?
- Take dance classes?
- Like the mental challenge of chess?
- Do you love to read?
- What are your hobbies?
The premise of using an interest inventory is that people who share similar interests will also enjoy the same type of work.
Check out the Career Interest Game.
- Do you excel in sports?
- Are you artistic?
- Do people call you when they're having computer problems?
- Can you take a motor apart, put it back together, and have no parts left over?
- Are you comfortable speaking in front of groups?
In addition to determining what you're good at, a skills assessment also helps you figure out what you enjoy doing. The skills you use in your career should combine both characteristics. You can use the results of the skills assessment to make some changes by acquiring the skills you need for a particular career.
Visit Exploring Interests and Careers.
Values: Value inventories measure how important different values are to you. Following are examples of work values, along with a definition of each item. When reading this list, think about how important each value is to you.
- Autonomy: receiving no or little supervision
- Helping others: providing assistance to individuals or groups
- Prestige: having high standing
- Job Security: a high probability that you will remain employed
- Collaboration: working with others
- Helping society: contributing to the betterment of the world
- Recognition: receiving attention for your work
- Compensation: receiving adequate pay
- Achievement: doing work that yields results
- Utilizing your skills and background: using your education and work experience to do your job
- Leadership: supervising/managing others
- Creativity: using your own ideas
- Variety: doing different activities
- Challenge: performing tasks that are difficult
- Leisure: having adequate time away from work
- Recognition: receiving credit for achievements
- Artistic expression: expressing your artistic talents
- Influence: having the ability to affect people's opinions and ideas
Personality: A personality inventory looks at your individual traits, motivational drives, needs, and attitudes. Your personality traits can determine which careers are best suited to you. For example:
- Are you shy or outgoing?
- Are you patient or impulsive?
- Are you good with children or adults?
- Do you like machines?
Answers to questions like these can help pinpoint careers you might excel in.
Try these personality inventories.
