“Your skills and strengths are the assets you can leverage as you grow and advance professionally. You will apply this knowledge of your skills and strengths as you select your career path, search for a job, develop your resume, and interview for specific position.”
- Northeastern University Skills, Strengths, and Interests
Self-Assessment Worksheet
v Job seekers and applicants have a personal responsibility to ensure their own pay equity, meaning that their pay is commensurate with skills and abilities. While federal and state governments have laws regarding pay, job seekers and applicants must not only know their rights but also their strengths, skills, competencies, and abilities to negotiate well. A solid self-assessment is a critical component of ensuring you understand your skill set and your role in this equation.
While the federal Equal Pay Act never intended for wages to be exactly equal, the hope is that employers treat applicants and employees fairly. The Equal Pay Act permits differences in pay due to lawful reasons such as longer time with the employer, longer time in the specific job, or level of performance. Other laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act, the Rehabilitation Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act together prohibit discrimination based upon race, color, ethnicity, national origin, sex, veteran status, disability, and age. You also play a role in ensuring that your wage rate or salary is as fair as possible. How? Whether you are looking for your first job or your first in quite a while, you should master some basics.
First, you must get going. Finding a job takes work—it is not a passive activity. What type of job should you pursue? Life coaches, celebrities, and corporate moguls cry out, “Find something you think is fun.” “Find something you have a passion for, or love to do, and it will never feel like work.” Sounds like a great idea, right? The reality is a little harder.
Work is Not Play
Play is down time or a time for leisure and recreation. Work, on the other hand, typically involves mental or physical activity. While gurus encourage you to market something you are excited and passionate about, more often than not, these things will not bring you a steady paycheck. In an article written by J.D. Roth, he states, “But when you combine your passion with something that’s useful to the world, that’s where you’ll find synergy. And that’s how you can make some money … [I]t’s not about working less … It’s about working more but spending your time on the things you love to do.
vi For every reader picking up this book, becoming actively engaged is the first step to getting a job. And for those who think they can earn a living wage by online gambling, singing karaoke, or playing cards
without applying themselves, think again. Even Dennis Hong, who spent a year playing poker professionally, had the following observations of professional poker:
vii 6 Reasons Professional Poker Is Way Harder Than It Looks
1. There is Guilt.
2. You Become Immune to Bad Luck.
3. You Stop Giving a Sh** about Your Money.
4. Just When You Start to Get Good, You Lose Everything.
5. It Requires Years of Tedious Study.
6. Forget Luck and High-Stakes Bluffing, It’s All about Math.
The Personal Self-Assessment
A solid assessment of your educational attainment, experiences, skills, aptitudes, likes, and dislikes is critical to analyzing your employment options. To help with this assessment, make a list! This may sound easy, but to do so properly will take introspection and honest self-evaluation. Your personal assessment must be candid and reflective and may be bolstered by sharing it with a few trusted friends, colleagues, family members, or perhaps a professional employment agency. The personal assessment differs greatly from career planning tools or career assessments used in academic and job placement settings. The personal assessment can be used by both job seekers and current employees looking for a job change. Responses to the assessment may be different between active applicants and those weighing a career move.
The following is an example of a sample personal assessment form:
ISSUE | CURRENT | IN SEARCH OF |
Results of a Recent Assessment | | |
Benefits and Requirements | | |
Preferred Work Environment | | |
I recommend a personal assessment for job seekers, applicants, and employees. If conducted frequently, you will be amazed how often your preferences, needs, and desires change. This is your assessment, for your personal use only.
Results from Most Recent Career or Professional Assessment
In addition to academic tests, many schools offer (or require) students to undertake aptitude/career planning testing to help identify future educational/career options. Job banks and career centers also provide such assessment opportunities. In row one of the sample assessment, capture any current career planning testing results.
The results of an assessment may be skewed by your interests at that time. A career in sports medicine or as an athletic trainer might be the assessment result during high school for an athlete who has listed his/her varsity sports as a skill set and interest, while a career in law enforcement might be the result from an assessment later in life. An assessment taken in your 30s may be quite different from when you were a high school student.
My 9th grade career assessment based upon academics and a career interest profile follows. You will note that while I expressed three possible career choices, none of which were discounted, the assessment provided me with three additional options to consider as well. The results offer a wide range of possibilities.
In case you are wondering if I am a pack rat holding on to paperwork for over 45 years, the answer is “No.” This was recently sent to me from my father’s estate. The key point is that my 9th grade career profile assessment was skewed by my interests at that time, which included rowing crew, band, chorus, and school productions. Years later, I majored in economics.
1974 Career Planning Report | Muskett, Jude A. |
In your career planning questionnaire, you indicate that you are a 14-year-old, a girl in the 9th grade, and that you expect to graduate from a four-year college. Furthermore, you said that your grades put you in the top quarter of your class. Among the groups of school subjects and activities, you said that you like the following: art, drama, music; school entertainment; food and personal care.
You indicated that your first choice of career goals was in the group called: Education and Human Welfare. Most people who do this kind of work have had school interests which are not like those you reported. However, they have had the amount of education you plan to get, and they have aptitudes like yours. While this choice seems reasonable in terms of your tested abilities and your educational plans, you may want to also think about the possibility of some field of work closer to your expressed interests.
You indicated your second choice of career goals was in the group called: Sports and Entertainment. Since the educational, school subject, and aptitude test requirements are so flexible in this occupational area, you may have to base any decision about this choice on considerations which are not discussed in this report. Your counselor, a teacher, or a parent may be able to help you as you explore this occupational area.
You indicated that your third choice of career goals was in the group called: Visual and Performing Arts. People who pursue this kind of career have social interests like yours. They usually get the kind of education you plan. They have aptitude scores like yours. On all these counts this looks like an occupational field which matches your abilities and interests well.
Considering primarily your tested aptitudes, and to a lesser extent your school subject and activity preference, you may want to look into the following occupational groups: Medically Related; Business-Sales and Promotion; Medical and Life Sciences. This is only a partial list...