Question:  

How can self-assessment aid me as I look to change jobs or careers?

Answer:  

Looking for a New Direction?

There are two self-assessment exercises which are particularly helpful to individuals who are thinking about career change. They may be called Factoring Your Past Accomplishments, and Cloning Yourself. In the course of my career, I’ve done both exercises several times to redefine who I am, what I value, how I want to be and what I want to accomplish.

The first exercise, Factoring Your Past Accomplishments, I credit to Dr. Bernard Haldane. Dr. Haldane worked with the US military during World War II to help decide where to place thousands of inductees. After the war, he applied his knowledge and techniques to help returning veterans choose careers.

Start the Factoring Accomplishments exercise by listing 12 to 15 events in your life that may have been difficult or uncomfortable, but that you did well, enjoyed doing or were proud of. Include events from both your personal and your professional life. Then rank them in order of importance. Analyze what you see.

Select the most significant eight or ten from this list. Reflect on each event and write down the steps you took, the skills you used and the personal traits you displayed during each event. Repeat this process for accomplishments or events that were not particularly difficult or uncomfortable. At this point you will begin to see patterns and be able to determine the directions and approaches that are best for you.

I saw gratifying results from the second exercise, Cloning Yourself, in a career assessment workshop which a colleague and I conducted for EXCEL! Networking Group, Inc., a self-help group of professionals with disabilities. The exercise leaps over limitations, and allows the participants to have their “clones” do or be whatever they wish. With EXCEL!, the participants successfully expressed who they would be if they were liberated from their disabilities.

In the cloning exercise, you are assessing your fantasies and goals. First, set aside practical considerations, such as financial constraints and physical handicaps. Then list the careers, jobs or activities you would pursue if you could clone yourself into five different people and have them do or be anything at all.

Let yourself go! Resist self-censorship, and stifle that little voice that says, “This is not possible!” Next to the activity chosen for each clone, explain in writing why you chose that particular activity for that particular clone, and mention the skills you have that would help you carry on the activity.

There are several things I like about these two exercises. First, the exercises help us look at our lives from two different views: one looks backward and inward, the other has a forward and outward perspective. Second, both exercises ask us to reflect on positives: successes, goals achieved, satisfaction, ideals and motivation.

Successful people have positive mental attitudes. Research and experience show that a positive attitude starts with self-talk and inner visions of success. “Stinkin’ thinkin,’” as speaker and author Stephen Covey calls it, can be a career- and satisfaction-killer.¹

Finally, I like both exercises because they produce lists of skills you can cross-check and rank. This information, coupled with the thought, reflection and focus that both exercises require, will prepare you to compose a future-directed resume, and to make sound decisions about your career and your life.

¹Stephen Covey, management lecture given at the Woodley Park Marriot, Washington, DC, 1996.

Thomas W. Morris III

President

Morris Associates, Inc.

Washington, DC 20003

202)290-3061

mai@morrisdc.com

www.morrisdc.com