You can complete assessments online from the comfort your home or chose to do one offered by an advisor. The chosen option is individual, and some may feel that doing a self-assessment is everything they need whilst other may want to speak to an advisor too. Both options are completely valid and popular. Spending time on looking inwards, gathering as much information as possible and discussing results before committing early may save you time eventually. Nevertheless, your career path may change even after a thorough career exploration process. Equally, do not feel that you must make the perfect decision now. The natural process of growing and developing may alter how we feel about our career choice, at any point we may decide to change jobs and that is ok too.
10 ways in which you can benefit from assessments.
- Self-awareness
- Help you better visualise your interests.
- Clarification of goals
- Identification of core competencies and skills
- Introduce ideas about career options that you may have not considered before.
- Reduces the risk of choosing a poorly suited career. Understanding about your values and preferences helps you narrow down your career choices.
- Provision of informed decision through taking the time to explore your options along with requirements and career development prospects
- Create a list of your strengths which you can add to you CV later.
- Boost in motivation by identifying strengths, seeing a clearer path towards achieving your career goals and being in control of your next step.
- Enhancing adaptability by identifying transferable skills and cumulated knowledge to help change career and have an easier transition into a new role.
Some limitations of assessments
- They cannot guarantee your suitability for a particular career. Always remember they are tools to help you narrow down your option and cannot predict if the chosen option will be a perfect fit. There are simply too many factors to account for like work environment, preference changes, development and change in aspirations.
- They do not assess for the varied circumstances of a job role. I.e. a dentist working in the hospital, army, or a dental practice.
Where can you find some assessments?
- You can try our Cavity workbook to help you build surface skills, strengths, and values. The activities in the workbook allow you to explore previous experiences so you can get the most out of your reflection.
- There is plethora of assessments online and a simple google search should bring options. For example, https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/discover-your-skills-and-careers/
- Speaking to an advisor and undertaking an assessment guided by them.
Tips to doing self-assessments:
- Allow plenty of time to complete – do not rush it. It is essential that you allow time to reflect and think of relevant examples.
- Choose a quite space where you will not be disturbed and can think about your experiences without interruption.
- Be honest with yourself and do not overdo the strengths and downplay the weaknesses.
- Whilst completing the assessment in one sitting may be suitable for some, feel free to take breaks and come back to it.
- There are plenty of options out there so if the first assessment you open does not resonate with you then look for another one. Also, multiple tools will help build a complete picture i.e. personality discovery, exploration of interests alongside skills assessments.
- Consider your values: what makes you happy in life? This is something you need to ensure that will career will provide. Examples include work-life balance, helping others, job security, flexible work, creativity etc.
- Align your career exploration results with current job market demands and identify the growing industries and where the trends are heading.
Need a bit more help to identify your career?
- Complete the CEIAG cavity workbook!
- Explore career ideas with your family and friends
- Getting your career started with an apprenticeship