Discover your strengths | @theU

This story was originally posted on the Career & Professional Development Center blog, Summits & Valleys.

What makes you successful? What tools do you use to achieve your daily goals? What skills do you have that make your accomplishments unique? The answers to these questions can be difficult to articulate. “Sell yourself”, network and interview, talk about yourself is a skill. These things are also difficult to talk about in your day-to-day life. I believe that learning and investigating our natural talents, or “strengths,” is a great place to start.

I started to discover my strengths during my first year of college by attending the Career & Professional Development Center, Workshop Discover your strengths, and now, in my final year, I rely heavily on the language and the confidence that learning from my strengths has given me. Although I had long relied on these talents to ensure my success, I was unaware of them. I couldn’t explain why the strategies I was using to pursue my goals were so successful and effective because they were so natural and automatic to me. I assumed everyone should operate the same or at least similar, but we don’t.

My strengths are completely unique to me and not only their presence but also the way they manifest in my daily life and mundane tasks. It took delving into them and the strengths of my peers to really understand this and learn to appreciate them.

EVALUATION

Gallup, the company that owns the assessment, says, “The CliftonStrengths Assessment measures your natural patterns of thinking, feeling and behavior. Once the online assessment is complete, you will have access to your personalized CliftonStrengths report. The report will help you understand what you do best naturally and how you can develop and use your talents to live your life as strong as possible.

CliftonStrengths is ideal for people who want a basic understanding of what they naturally do best; greater confidence and autonomy through a deeper understanding of how they can use their CliftonStrengths to be successful; a simple way to describe their unique talent DNA and improved performance at work and everywhere; as well as strategies for managing, not correcting, weaknesses.

Learn more here.

My top five strengths include Futuristic, Strategic, Entry, Maximizer, and Communication – which can sound like a bunch of arbitrary words and they are, until you understand what each one demonstrates. For example, I use Futuristic to plan my days, set goals for myself, and create my ideal future. I used this strength to plan my classes and will soon be earning the degrees I envisioned. In addition, I have used my strategic strength to plan, organize and carefully lay the foundations for my ideal future, my long-term goals and my academic journey. I also use communication every day to improve my relationships, set boundaries, and let those around me know what I need to achieve my goals and foster our relationships. My strengths are so important to support my day to day life. Additionally, I can use this language and my skills to explain why I may be a good candidate for a job opportunity.

Throughout my strengths there are themes of leadership, encouragement and achieving the best in people and results and I can use my understanding of my strengths to give examples in my cover letters and when interviews with potential employers. For example, I use my Strength Maximizer to use information about those I work closely with to delegate tasks, create opportunities, and motivate others to use their abilities and talents to build stronger connections and results. as a team. I would then give an example of this in my own life as a career development intern. My Strategic works the same way to create quick, decisive game plans and naturally build strategies to communicate those changes and create support systems to ensure our success.

Brief descriptions, accompanied by specific examples, can help you ‘sell’ yourself and your skills, especially in work environments that often use strengths-based language. Showing that I understand myself, my strengths and the way I work with others can give me an “edge” in a competitive market. This knowledge can help an employer get to know you better and get a better idea of ​​how you might fit into this work environment.

I have told you a lot about my strengths, how do you learn yourself?

U students can take the CliftonStrengths assessment FREE at the Career & Professional Development Center Workshop Discover your strengths and have a certified trainer debrief the results.

At the workshop, you will:

• Learn more about why Clifton Strengths was created and the science behind the assessment.
• Take the assessment that asks you to consider “this or that” questions that demonstrate your natural talents and role models to find out what strengths you rely on daily.
• Get a report of your top five strengths
• Explore the strengths of your peers and understand what makes each other’s strengths unique

This two-hour workshop will be held virtually on September 30, 4-6:30 p.m. STD. RSVP required via Hand shake.