Learning about Yourself

There is more to getting the job of your choice than just having a degree. Your degree will open many doors, but it is up to you to obtain the employment you desire. Advance preparation is critical. Let us examine what you can do to successfully meet the challenge of competition for employment. 

Choosing your career direction calls for a close look at your product - YOU! In doing this self-analysis, you must:

• Know yourself. Make an honest appraisal of your interests, abilities, and disabilities.
• Determine your interests. Analyze what activities interest you most (outdoors, helping people, mechanical, clerical).
• Recognize Your Aptitudes. Identify the special abilities you have at present and for the future, and determine your best combination of abilities.
• Evaluate Your Work Experience and Education. Determine what knowledge or skills you have acquired through your academic training and work experiences and how this knowledge will transfer to your desired career path.
• Recognize Your Personal Qualities. Evaluate those traits that will make you an outstanding candidate and be able to discuss them clearly and concisely.
• Understand your Physical Capacities. Do you have any physical handicaps that would prevent you from functioning in certain jobs? If so, concentrate your efforts on obtaining employment where these handicaps will not be a limitation in accomplishing your short- and long-range goals.
• Identify Your Leisure Time Activities. Evaluate your personal interests and hobbies. Determine how these can be an asset to you in accomplishing your goals.
• Determine Your Vocational Goals. It is important to establish goals. However, goals are only short-lived. They are either attained, at which time new goals are set, or they are not attained, for whatever reason, and then alternative goals are established. In any case, at the very outset it is important to establish short-term as well as long-term goals. Doing so provides a target and helps keep you on the proper path.