Have you ever taken a moment to stop and think, what am I
good at? You may do well in your major and you may be really involved in your
extracurricular activities. BUT, what makes you good at those things?
Becoming self-aware of your strengths is critical to your
career development. This knowledge allows you to reflect on the parts about you
that are the core of your work ethic. Once
you are conscious of this, you are able to apply these strengths to pretty much
any field. The purpose of this is to open you up to opportunities and help you
find something in yourself that you probably didn’t even know existed before.
Virginia Tech Career Services pays for several professional
resources that assess your strengths. Our most popular ones include:
This assessment categorizes you into your top five strengths,
out of over 30 possible strengths. Examples of strengths are Relator,
Responsibility, Empathy, etc. The purpose of these strengths are to allow
exploration. With this information, “students can be intentional in investing
in their talents, expanding their curiosities, and putting those talents to
use.”
This assessment focuses on interests, values, personality
type, and skills to direct your attention to potential careers relating to each.
It encompasses its own assessments, personal anecdotes, with explanations about
why some careers fit some strengths. Be sure to get the appropriate code from
Career Services to take the assessments for free!
Do What You
Are: (Get the assessment in the office with an appointment)
This assessment focusing on personality type is one of the
more popular ones known to universities and employers, due to the Myers Briggs
Type Indicator. When you take this tool, you have the possibility of being one
of 16 different personalities. The assessment is based on your initial
preferences to certain values and traits. The result may describe you exactly!
It’s remarkable how well this assessment can identify your personality. Then,
for your own reference, the results categorize what your personality works best
at. There is an abundance of information that can come from this assessment.
To learn more about what personality type can mean to you,
check out this link: http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/
Why are
these assessments beneficial to you?
All three of these tools are known worldwide for self-exploration.
Then, to better utilize this information, some assessments use your results to
suggest what you would be good at in a career. Another really great feature
about these assessments is that they focus on the positives. Everyone has
something positive to contribute to a job. Instead of focusing on what you
can’t do, you can focus on the things you can do! It is positive psychology incorporated
into a professional sense.
To find out more about who you are, check out the links
provided in this page of our career site: http://www.career.vt.edu/MajorCareerExploration/SelfAssessment.html
We also encourage you to make an appointment with a full
time Career Advisor to better understand the purpose of and results from all
these assessments.
