Reflecting on your skills, values, and interests is a valuable part of the career planning process. Even if you know what you want to do, assessment can help you refine your goals.
Our activities are not designed to match you with a job but instead, to help you understand yourself so that you can make more informed career decisions.
Self-assessment
Interests
Interests are the strongest predictor of job satisfaction. Many people have an idea of their interests but don’t know how they connect with the world of work. Here are some activities to get you started on learning more about your interests.
- Do our interactive Holland code activity to help you to identify your interests and determine how they correspond with occupations.
- Reflecting on your past/current jobs, make a list of what you like and dislike. Keep in mind that our likes and dislikes change over time so taking stock can help you make decisions about future job/career choices.
Other interest assessments:
O*NET Interest Profiler – FREE. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, this is a free assessment. Results include a list of careers related to your interests.
Self-Directed Search (SDS) SMALL FEE. The SDS is a career interest inventory offered by Psychological Assessment Resources (PAR), typically for a small fee.
Skills
Most people have between 200 and 500 skills! There are three categories of skills:
- Adaptive/self-management skills = personality traits or characteristics
- Job skills = skills specific to a particular job
- Transferable/functional skills = skills used in many different jobs
The key is identifying not only what skills you have but also the skills you enjoy using.
Our Motivated Skills activity can help you determine your power skills (the skills you are good at but also enjoy using).
Values
Values are the emotional salary of work and help determine what gives work meaning. Taking time to understand your work values can help you find work that is fulfilling.
Take our Values Clarification activity to help discern your values.
Personality preferences
Understanding your personality preferences can help you with the career planning process, both in determining career fields but also work settings that might be a good fit.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
The MBTI has been used for decades in helping people with career planning. It is well researched, reliable, and valid. The best way to learn your MBTI type is to take the official assessment and meet with an MBTI-qualified practitioner to have an interpretation done.
Additional information about the MBTI:
Books recommended by The Myers–Briggs Company
Work style assessment
Work styles – another way of looking at preferences
What’s next?
Once you have assessed your interests, skills, values, and personality/work style, review the results of all your assessments. Think of it as a puzzle with each group of results an individual piece. Here is an assessment results overview worksheet you can download so you can have all your assessment results in one place.
Your next step is to Explore Options.