Instant All-In-One Job Search:
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Instant All-In-One Job Search:
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Approach #2 - Your Guide for Career AssessmentIf you are among the people who are still undecided about their professional career or unsatisfied with their actual situation, take a look at this guide to find the orientation and information you are looking for. This Career Guide in particular is useful if you:
Career planning or career exploration is much more than just job
searching. Job searching is a short-term pursuit of a position that
matches your financial and career goals. Career planning is a long,
progressive process of choosing education, training, and jobs that
fit your interests and skills. This planning process also should
include the evaluation of opportunities of changing your career,
working part-time or working independently. Deciding what type of work
you want to pursue requires knowledge and understanding of your
interests, your values, your motivation, and the skills you enjoy
using the most. This is useful whether you are choosing a career for
the first time or changing careers for the twenty-first time.
In
order to find a career that’s right for you, we analyzed a great
number of websites and identified four basic steps of Career
Planning that will help you to decide what type of job or career you
want, determine the skills you need, and discover ways to get those
skills.
In order to find the career that’s right for you, use our four basic steps of Career Planning.
Once you learned more about your personality and you
know better what you really want in your life, you can begin to explore majors
and careers that match your values and interests – independent if
you are looking the first time for a job, you are unemployed or
searching for a new career opportunity because you are not happy
with your current situation.
It
takes some time to go through this process, in particular if you
never did this type of exercise before, but you should start right
now as these skills can be used throughout your life. Take control
of your future and start developing a
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them” - Henry David Thoreau, American author, poet and philosopher
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Accomplishment
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Activities
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Skills and Knowledge |
Why Source of Pride/Excitement? |
1 |
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2 … |
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a.
In the accomplishment column write down all the activities that you have
completed in your life and which are a source of pride for you, independent if
they are directly related to your present or past job (or school) or
not. Also consider accomplishments from your volunteer
and extracurricular activities and your personal life (family
activities, hobbies, club activities, etc.).
c. List the skills in the "Skills and Knowledge" column that you had to apply or to develop in order to complete the activities described in the "Activities" column.
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d. In the last column, list all sources of excitement about the
accomplishments you have written down. The reflection upon what
stimulated or even excited
you in succeeding your goals give you insight
into your real interests and values. Make notes about the interests
and values that are reflected in your accomplishments.
e. Talk with your family, best friends or your partner about what you found out about your strengths, interests and values. Ask them if they agree with your analysis and if they have other observations that you did not include in your analysis (other talents or strengths. You will be surprised how other people see yourself and how their perception can differ from your own.
In the first step of the analysis you identified your
talents and strengths and you learned more about your interests and
values.
But
are you really ready to tackle the job search?
Before contacting employers, you should do your homework and be well
prepared to communicate your job search objective, your skills and
qualifications and how these relate to particular careers. There are
a big number of
assessment tools available in the
literature and also the
Internet.
For best results, you should consider assessments with professionals
who have expertise using assessment tools, like counselors at high
schools, trade and vocational schools, colleges or universities.
We searched the web and checked several free or low-cost assessment tests. If you would like to go more into details, you are invited to visit our Book Store with assessment and career tools. In general, the evaluation of the presented tests showed that several free tests are fairly good, but if you require more detailed information you should consider investing either in a paid online-assessment test or in a specialized book, using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or Don Lowry's True Colors Personality System. If you prefer to rely on the free online assessment tests, you should take several of them, as we found that results can differ quite a bit from test to test.
If you are thinking of opening your own business and being your own boss, you should consider this option in your self-exploration exercise. Start with a basic questionnaire that helps you to think about the most important aspects of being self-employed. You should go through this questionnaire before you continue with the self-assessment. Don't tell your boss and never quit your job without learning as much as possible about the pros and cons of opening your own business. There are a lot of resources in the internet available that can help you in this decision process but we highly recommend reading specialized literature like Start Your Own Business by Rieva Lesonsky, considered as "The Only Start-Up Book You'll Ever Need" according the Chicago Tribunes.
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