- Values
- Personality
- Skills
- Interests
After you've compiled a detailed Personal Profile, some clear options will emerge for you. It's important to remember that the self-exploration process does not necessarily point you to a specific job, but rather to potential fields of interest that you can investigate more closely during the Career Exploration phase which comes next.
There are many fun ways to learn more about yourself.
Individual counseling
Self
Assessment Inventories
The
next step
Related
Web sites
Methods of Self Assessment
There are many ways to gather good information about yourself.
Try Different Things
Take many different courses, do volunteer work in various settings, have summer jobs or internships, and join different student organizations. As you do each of these things, ask yourself:
- What do I like best about this?
- What do I feel I'm good at?
- What role do I tend to play?
- When am I most interested or engaged in a task?
- What subjects do I want to keep reading or talking about?
- What makes this my favorite class?
You can often get feedback from friends, parents, and faculty about what
you're good at and what role they see you in.
Individual Counseling
Another way to begin the self exploration process is to talk with a
career counselor. Our counselors are available to meet with you individually
to discuss your interests, skills and work values. We can help you
identify important themes, and help you devise a plan for exploring careers of
interest. We can also help you navigate the vast amount of career information
in the Career Services Library by pointing you to the information that is
relevant to your situation. Together, we can compile a Personal Profile,
which is a detailed description of you that can serve as a yardstick by which
to gauge the fit of different options. To schedule an appointment,
please call (704) 894-2132 or e-mail
us.
Participate in Self-Exploration Workshops or Programs
The Careers Office offers many different workshops throughout the year geared towards helping you understand more about yourself. Call our office to register. Additionally, the Lilly Program for the Theological Exploration of Vocation offers various retreats and workshops geared towards understanding your identity and vocation.
Finally, there are many Self Assessment Instruments offered in the Career Services Office and vocational instruments on the internet to help you define your interests, personality, skills, and values.
Another way to gather valuable self information is through standardized assessment. Many different types of instruments exist to help clarify your values, skills, personality, and interests. All of these instruments, whether done online or through the Career Services Office rely on self-report: that is, you provide the information about yourself. Thus, these tools are not designed to provide you brand new ideas about yourself, but rather to help organize that information so that it is more easily translated into attractive options for you.
The Career Services Office offers two standardized assessments, costing $10 each:
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a personality assessment tool that produces a 4-letter type to describe your natural preferences and tendencies. This tool can be particularly helpful in describing your strengths, your preferred function in a job or organization, and specific fields which would be the best match for your unique personality.
The Strong Interest Inventory is an interest assessment tool that compares your interests with those of a general sample group and with professionals in various careers. It is particularly helpful in defining general interest areas that stand out from others, as well as a list of occupations that are a good match for your interest patterns.
Additionally, we have a dozen other paper-and-pencil inventories to help you reflect on characteristics of a career that are important to you; to better define and articulate your unique skills; and to discover patterns in your life. One of the most useful inventories is the Values Inventory, which prompts you to evaluate how important different values are to you in your occupation, and then rank order your preferences. These inventories are available at no cost.
Procedure: If you are interested in taking any self assessments, the first step is to schedule an appointment with a career counselor. Together you will discuss your expectations for taking the assessments, where you are at in the career development process, and which tools if any would be of most use to you. If the two of you decide that assessment instruments will be helpful, you will take them home with you to complete, return them to our office for scoring, and schedule a follow-up appointment for each of the tools you have taken so that the results may be given to you in detail.
While self assessment instruments do not tell you what you should do with your life, they can help you gain insight as to the underlying values, personality preferences, and interests that you should take into consideration as you choose a career.
By now, you will have gathered valuable information and reflected on your unique abilities, interests and values. What do you do with all of this information? How do you translate it into potential careers to explore?
Our experience shows that in many cases, the process itself presents possibilities. Of course, sometimes career possibilities don’t always present themselves so readily. In that case, our career counselors can help you dig deeper. In either case, the next step is to learn as much as you can about each potential career using the strategies outlined in the next section on Career Exploration.
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