Finding Yourself: How to Assess Your Interests, Skills, and Values

What do you want to do with your life?

There are many ways to go about answering that question, but most experts agree that starting with an analysis of your individual traits is the best way.

• What am I most interested in?
• What do I do best?
• How will I balance work with other areas of my life?

Listed below are some of the career counseling instruments that can help you focus on these issues. They are all available in the Career Center. Staff members will help you interpret the significance of your results and use the information to make or clarify career decisions.

Strong Interest Inventory (SII). This inventory helps you understand your work interests and suggests compatible job titles and fields. Your scores will show how similar your interests are to the interests of professionals in a wide range of jobs.

Campbell Interest and Skill Survey (CISS). This survey measures self-reported interests as well, but also includes a skills assessment that reflects your level of confidence in your ability to do various work-related activities.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). This instruments measures personality, dispositions, and preferences. Much research has been done about the professional fields that match each personality type.

Learning Style Inventory (LSI). The LSI describes the way you learn and how you deal with ideas and day-to-day situations in your life. It will help you understand better how you make career choices, solve problems, set goals and deal with new situations, and will match your type with career fields and academic majors.

Self-Directed Search (SDS). This is a self-scoring paper and pencil inventory. It asks you to indicate your level of interest and rate your abilities in professions and activities related to six occupational areas. The result is a 3-letter code that can be matched with congruent occupations in the "Occupations Finder."

FOCUS II Interactive Software. This assessment software, available only in the Career Center, focuses on person/environment match. The structured program leads you through a set of questions about your interests, abilities and values. After analyzing patterns in your responses, FOCUS II matches your profile with a number of different career areas and allows you to research over 1,400 occupations in depth.

Other Career Counseling Tools

• The Skills Card Sort helps you discover your strongest skills groups and identify skills you like to use the most.
• Values inventories help you clarify career choices as they relate to personal goals and needs.
• Decision-Making inventories identify your preferred methods of making decisions and clarify roadblocks in your career decision-making efforts.

Career Assessment and Self-Test Web Sites

www.amby.com/worksite/explore.html

www.careerkey.org

10steps.careerpathsonline.com/guide