Need for self-evaluation before career selection

You simply cannot accept a job offer just because it has been made to you. Before you say yes to it, you need to reflect deliberately on it. You need to ask yourself a couple of pertinent questions.

You could be straight out of college and looking for a job or have already been working and seeking a change. Whatever be it, you need to peep inside yourself and honestly get to know what your strongpoints are and where they lie. More often than not, we tend to visualise what a job is going to all about rather than dwelling on the prospects of success in it. The peep that you make inside you should be aimed to discern whether your decision to select a particular career is justified or not.

If you take up any career before indulging in a self-evaluation, you will land up in thick soup. The self-evaluation per se has to be honest so that you arrive at definite inferences about yourself before you actually move on to become a person that you seek to be. Something exciting about the process is that you get to know your fortes – something you had no inkling about. Similarly, you also wake up to your deficiencies that were hitherto fore unnoticed or discounted. The discernment is helpful because your strengths help in enhancing your positive self-image by boosting self-confidence, personal efficiency and self-worth. Likewise, a knowledge of your weak spots will prompt you to cogitate on ways to prevail over them.

Concurrent with self-evaluation, refining your CV will not be out of place. This will facilitate submission of job applications without any delay. Most people err by applying to each and every job listing in anticipation that they could be called for an interview. But they disregard the important point that a job hunt effort is all about putting forward your skills efficaciously, something that should never be avoided in your career interests.  

During your job search process, you are akin to a finished good that is up for sale. It is your flairs, capabilities, proficiencies, expertise and familiarities that are required to be convincingly sold. You must invariably ponder over the fact that organisations that hire you will stand to gain. This necessitates being proud of yourself and never demoralising your own self. How can you do that? First and foremost, you should get to know your top fortes and make them your key job search preferences. You should not lose sight of the fact that your fortes cannot be useful to all organisations across the board – what is of value to one can be worthless for the other.

The first step in self-evaluation should be to recall moments when you were in highest spirits; what contributed in making you feel exalted and happy; specific knowledge and skills as also personality traits that you applied. It is only thereafter that you should ponder over your attainments – issues that you excelled at in your own perception and not prompted by external influences. You should catalogue them starting from as far back as you can think. Having done so, you will be able to find out the ones that were related to your job in particular. You will realise that you may have missed out on skills related to proper organisation, punctuality or imperatives. The list that you will have in front of you will thus characterise your strongpoints, accomplishments and anticipations.

The skills-set on record are the ones that you need to sell to prospective employers. Among them will also be some skills that offered you immense delight when they were applied. You must mull over them separately to determine the ones that offer you the greatest contentment. Your list will indicate to you your skill deficiencies also; the same should impel you to identify scope for improvement and the way they can be acquired.

The next stage of your self-evaluation is to reflect on circumstances that you consider favourable and are sought by you as also the ones that you need to circumvent. Additionally, the circumstances should also throw light on opportunities that you happen to be looking for; such prospects could well be related to designations, placement location, remuneration and skills acquisition. It is also important that you also dwell on how you prefer to superintend all these issues and various preferences that you have. In other words, you ought to evaluating everything that has short and long-term ramifications.   

A self-evaluation exercise, though apparently cumbersome, will facilitate your endeavours to get a job that is satisfying. An important point is to not confine your job search to either the skills possessed by you or interests harboured by you. Doing so can lead to getting dissuaded because of mismatches and dual requirements. The job or a career that you eventually select should be one that encompasses your maximum skills and interests so that you derive the highest degree of satisfaction.