sponsored by The First Presbyterian Church of New Canaan and St. Mark’s  Episcopal Church

Self Assessment Exercises - Page 2 of 2

If appropriate, have spouse or significant other personally do this exercise and compare it with your results. It could help improve your communications with each other.

Exercise # 5: Become Aware of Your Desired Job/Work Environment

Examining the environment of several of your past jobs can be very helpful in determining what you want in the future. Put real though into this because it has to do with where you spend most of your waking hours. It is where it works or doesn’t work.

 You will be considering tangible factors like location, what the company does/makes, what’s it reputation, availability of stock options, educational opportunities, benefits, financial health of organization etc, You should also take into account what the working climate was really like; participative, regimented, conservative, how good was management team , how good were your peers, what was your boss really like. Did he help or hinder you etc?

1. Pick five of your most recent jobs and perhaps one volunteer activity in which you were very involved. On a sheet of paper make two columns one with the heading “Satisfiers” and the other Dissatisfies.” Now separately for each of the six jobs picked write down everything that you can think of about it that satisfied you, that you liked, that turned you on. And then everything that dissatisfied you, that you didn’t like, that turned you off. Here is a chance to really nitpick these situations and put into words how you
   felt about them at the time. Take your time and make a really meaningful list.
   

2. Go away from this effort and when you come back go over what you have written to determine whether or not you left anything out.
   

3. Now on another sheet of paper create from what you have learned from the above a Summary of Satisfiers and of Dissatisfies.
   

Finally, take a deep breath and write a brief essay called “My Ideal Job Parameters” in which you will describe what you want in your next job

Exercise # 6: Identifying and Analyzing Accomplishments

The dictionary defines an accomplishment as “something completed successfully, an achievement” and an achievement as “something that has been accomplished
successfully, especially by means of a skill, practice or perseverance.” And for the word skill it says, “the capacity to accomplish successfully with some special knowledge, ability or proficiency.”

This review suggests a more career-oriented definition: ”An accomplishment is something specific that you did; solved a difficult problem, met an interesting challenge, reacted to a crisis or had a rewarding success which had a quantifiable or implied result and you enjoyed doing it.”

Why Identification and Analysis Are Important Reviewing 

Examining many of the good things you have done in your life increases self-awareness and, often, raises self-esteem. It demonstrates that you have accomplished worthwhile and interesting things and their analysis can help determine your key strengths and give some insight into your interest patterns. They can then be used to support a focused statement of the saleable assets/values you can offer in the market and also become the “showcase statements” for your resume.

How to Identify

1.  Start when you were in high school and, taking 3 to 5 year segments of your life, identify and write down (not in any detail) things you did that had some kind of result and that you liked doing. The objective of this exercise is to come up with a list of at least 25 to 30. The more you come up with, the more valuable and rewarding it will be.
   

2. The accomplishments need not be monumental in the eyes of others. What counts is that you actually did something, there was a result and you felt good about it. If there is no result involved, what you have come up with is probably describes a responsibility.
   

3. The majority of the accomplishments should come from your work life, but also examine things you did in school and college, as a volunteer in the community, during leisure time recreation or involving your family. All of these can show how you do things and what you like to do.

How to Analyze

1. From the above “accomplishment dump,” pick 8 accomplishments that are quite different, (6 from your working life) and for each write a P A R Statement, a concise, but information-packed three paragraph essay using these guidelines:
   

2.    For each PAR Statement that you have created:

a)    Underline all the action words or phrases that you have used and make a list of the four or five that appear the most. This is some good input in to identifying your key strengths

b)    Write down the answers to these questions:

3.) Carefully review the information from 2)a and 2)b above and you should see patterns emerging that will help you identify your three or four key strengths, some clues to where your interests lie, what you like to do the most in terms of business issues you like to solve.

Exercise # 7: Do Psychological Testing and Get Feedback

The Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto CA, publishes two instruments that added somewhat more refined information to the other self assessment exercise. They are highly recommended and their administration and feedback needs to be done by a trained professional. (Mercer Field or Mac Walker can do this.)

1.) The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator( MBTI ) gives excellent corroboration on your strengths, your preferred work environment based on how you prefer to behave. An understanding of it will also help you to communicate better.

2.) The Strong Interest Inventory works closely with the MBTI and assesses your patterns of interest and personal style in areas such as leadership and risk taking.

Exercise #8: Do an Analysis and Plan For Your Financial Needs

Once you have completed the Self Assessment Portion, you should move on to the Written Job Search Plan.  

Click below to go to
The Written Job Search Plan

March 2001

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By:  Mac Walker, Principal Strategist, Career Mission Consulting
Phone & Fax (203) 857-4625
macmiss2000@yahoo.com