You've suffered through the process of deciding what field of study to pursue in college. Now you're facing the challenge of finding a company culture where you enjoy practicing your passion.
It's tough work. It requirers your best.
Given this, what's holding you back? What's keeping you from being great?
This week how about identifying your strengths? How about examining where and when you do your best work? Taking time to discern these seemingly simple details will help set yourself apart when it comes time to start talking with potential employers.
When you know who you are, the value you add to society and why you'd thrive in a certain company culture it allows employers to draw their own conclusion that you are the best candidate for the position.
Brandon, you highlight a very important component of a student's career development process. Employers want to know that a student has engaged in self assessment and can articulate his or her strengths and how they can be maximized to benefit the organization. If you are wondering how to begin analyzing your own strengths, I would highly recommend the book StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. It is the most recent version of Now, Discover Your Strengths, which was recommended to me by a mentor when I was an undergraduate student. It is based on the premise of the Gallup Organization's research that employees are happier, more productive and more likely to remain with an organization if they feel that their strengths are being utilized. A brief synopsis of the book includes the following: "Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? Chances are, you don't. All too often, our natural talents go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths." Each book includes a free access code to take the assessment, which will give each person a profile of five strengths. A student job seeker can utilize these in combination with their experiences to confidently answer the question: What are your greatest strengths?
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ReplyDeleteKimberly,
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a great point. According to StrengthsFinder2.0 here are myt top five strengths:
Individualization
Connectedness
Learner
Achiever
Intellection
Additionally my Myers-Briggs assessment determined that I am Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging (ENTJ).
Here is the breakdown of ENTJ: http://typelogic.com/entj.html