Self-Assessment

To arrive at the best career plan, self-assessment is the most important first step.

Take stock of your:

  • Interests - How do you like to spend your spare time?
  • Values - What is important to you? What are your priorities in life?
  • Talents - What comes naturally to you? What characteristics do you take for granted?
  • Skills - What have you learned to do? What do you still need to learn how to do?
  • Strengths - What are your strong points? What subjects/skills do you like most? Why?
  • Weaknesses - What are your weakest points? What subjects/skills do you like least? Why?
  • Goals/aspirations - What do you hope to accomplish in 3 years? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? life?

If you do not know the answers to these questions, you need to do some homework on YOU -

FOCUS 2 is an online, self-guided program which identifies your work values, skills, personality preferences, and natural strengths to help you make decisions about your future career goals. For more information, see the FOCUS 2 Users Guide. Once you have completed a FOCUS 2 assessment, please schedule a meeting with a Career Services career professional to review your profile.

Strong Interest Inventory

The Strong Interest Inventory® instrument is based on the idea that individuals are more satisfied and productive when they work in jobs or at tasks that they find interesting and when they work with people whose interests are similar to their own. The Strong Interest Inventory® instrument takes about 30 minutes to complete and contains 291 items that measure your interests in a wide range of occupations, occupational activities, hobbies, leisure activities and types of people. The assessment includes jobs in the fast-growing fields of computer hardware and electronics, marketing and advertising, finance, and accounting along with traditional jobs. Your interests are compared to thousands of individuals who report being happy and successful in their jobs. Your personalized report identifies your optimum career choices based on your interests and includes additional related occupations with concise job descriptions.

In order to complete the Strong Interest Inventory, please set up an appointment time with the Office of Career Services. Allow for at least 30 minutes to complete the assessment. Once completed and evaluated, you will be invited back to review the instrument results with a professional career counselor.