From the development of COVID-19 to the Presidential Election that marked the beginning of the new year, 2020 has been extremely eventful thus far. With all that has happened, career development is not the first thought to reach people’s minds. However, times are rapidly changing. Most of today’s workforce has transitioned online, and now is the perfect time to start considering ways to enhance your professional profile and achieve your career goals.
Being committed to developing your career will ultimately motivate and increase your productivity. If you put yourself in charge of your career path, it will automatically increase your self-confidence. Here are a few career development methods you can use to get yourself started:
S.W.O.T Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats)
A SWOT analysis is one of the most helpful tools because it allows you to learn more about yourself. It benefits you in that it forces you to compile a list of strengths and weaknesses, which can ultimately identify jobs that cater to your skillset. It focuses on the internal factors as well as external factors that can impact your career development. Along with this, the S.W.O.T analysis is straightforward and not to be overly complicated.
- Strengths: What skills do you possess? What are you interested in?
- Weaknesses: What do you not enjoy? What skills are you not confident at?
- Opportunities: What situations make you work the hardest? What motivates you?
- Threats: What qualities would make you a higher risk for companies?
An excellent tool for completing a S.W.O.T analysis is Creately, an online platform with S.W.O.T analysis templates. This website also has several other tools for organizations to utilize and tools for personal development.
Self-Assessments
Self-assessments are a great way to personally reflect, identify, and evaluate your unique interests and skill sets within a particular field. This method assists in finding out how much progress you’ve made throughout your professional career, as well as identifying potential areas of growth. It serves as a way to acknowledge your work and abilities. It also allows you to self-diagnose fields that could be potentially problematic and, at the same time, pinpoint relevant solutions. Self-assessments can be done at the discretion of your employer, or in your own spare time.
Recommended self-assessment tools:
- Learning style
- DISC personality assessment
- Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
- Interpersonal Leadership Styles (ILS)
- StrengthsQuest
Expanding Your Linked-In Presence
LinkedIn is a platform that individuals use to summarize their professional experience for potential employers and recruiters. There are major advantages to boosting your LinkedIn profile, and that is why we are here to help. Those seeking employees on the platform LinkedIn have been shown to accurately judge skills such as leadership, emotional intelligence, planning, and communication in potential employees (Kluemper, Rosen, & Mossholder, (2012). If recruiters can accurately judge your skillset, that means you need to have correct and viable information on your LinkedIn profile.
LinkedIn typically includes resume type information, and sometimes even more information than your traditional resume. However, a complete LinkedIn profile that is appealing to recruiters is much more than a profile picture, and a posted resume. This is a prediction at best, but LinkedIn profiles may be even better predictors of your cognitive abilities. With this being said, let us help you get started in creating a powerful and professional LinkedIn profile.
If you ever want to “fix your career,” contact the Career Service Station. We provide a multitude of services such as LinkedIn profile management, resume and cover letter review, interview skill prep, and various other resources that will help you take that next step towards your future career.
Call us at 518-290-0812 or send us a message at contactus@careerservicestation.com