Assessing Yourself

Self Assessment is about taking the time to think through where you are now and where you would like to be in the future.

It involves thinking about your:

• Values and Attitudes - What are important values to you that will affect your career direction eg. are you interested in a job that assists the community in some way, is job security important, do you need to be in a creative environment, is money important in your job? List the important values and attitudes you have. These will probably change over your lifetime.
• Interests - Whether these are work related (eg. finance) or not (eg. sports) they are important to think about in terms of your overall goals and employers are keen to hear about them. List these.
• Attributes - Again, employers are interested in hearing about these. They include things such as initiative, imagination and creativity, intellectual ability, temperament, sense of responsibility, leadership, flexibility. List these.
• Skills – Skills and personal attributes overlap. The emphasis here is on transferable skills-skills that can be transferred from university or other experiences such as extra-curricular activity and part time work, to your career. Click here for assistance on how to identify your key skills and how to construct a skills inventory.
• Goals - Finally list your more immediate goals and then your long term career goals. What steps do you need to take to achieve these? Are your values, interests, attributes, and skills aligned with these?