Assess Yourself

Career management is a cyclical and nonlinear process. The resources and services offered by Career Development will help you assess your strengths and skills, explore diverse industries and functions, prepare you for the application and interview processes, and guide you as you apply for positions.

• Learning about your preferences, strengths, and areas for improvement is important at any stage of your career exploration and development.
• Start by clarifying your preferences that may affect your satisfaction with a potential academic program/career path. You may do this informally by talking to academic and career advisors, professors, family members, and friends.

What can I do?

Intentional engagement focused on values and skills assessment leading to the identification of professional interests and motivations to drive future career success and satisfaction.

• Read about the world of work, sectors, industries and functions.
  • Join professional organizations, sign up for newsletters attend networking events to learn more
  • Explore our Career Paths pages, checkout Firsthand/Vault for guides and information.
  • Use Career Research Tools from AU Library to search up industries and companies.
  • Take a look at companies based on TBJ Lists (National Company Lists and Business Rankings – The Business Journals) for different cities in industries of interest to see what companies there are
• Reflect on your interests, skills, workstyles, and values (VIPS).
  • Get your Top 5 Themes from the CliftonStrengths Assessment
  • Understand top five Talent Themes and how to apply them to job roles and environments.
  • See more resources below.
• Reflect upon interests and skills to evaluate functions (tasks/skills), industries, and culture-matches
  • What courses and topics spark your interest?
  • What social causes and activities are you passionate about?
  • What talents and skills come naturally to you?
  • What three adjectives would your friends use to describe your personality?
  • What tasks or activities do you like doing in class projects?
  • What parts of studying do you most enjoy?
  • How do the things you enjoy doing fit in with skills or competencies needed at work?
  • What types of activities or tasks can you see yourself doing in five or ten years?
• Compare major/career ideas that you have researched and evaluate their specific pros and cons.
  • Don’t forget to use the results of your VIPS self-assessments when you evaluate and compare the options.
  • Which options are a better fit? Why?  
  •  Some of the best career paths for you will always start at the place where your interests meet, take the Roadmap quiz to help.
• Determine priorities related to geographic location, income, etc.
• Align curricular and co-curricular involvements with competencies employers seek

Self-Assessment & V.I.P.S.

Self-assessment instruments may help you clarify your VIPS: values, interests, personality preferences, skills that you like to use or would like to develop.

Any self-assessment instrument provides suggestions –- not definitive answers — regarding potential careers. Self-assessment results may help you to validate your major/career ideas and even generate new ideas!

As a Kogod student your best place to start is with taking your CliftonStrengths and checking out our CliftonStrengths in Career Exploration resource, however here are some other good resources as well.