3. Self-Assessment

Career-Exploration Roadmap:

Identification

Identify your:

• Skills and Abilities - What are you good at doing? What are your transferable skills?
• Motivations and Values -What drives you?
• Interests/Personality - What do you enjoy doing? What is your personal style?
• Accomplishments - What are you finest achievements?

If you find the work opportunity you are considering is lacking in one or more of these areas, beware! Job satisfaction is a combination of all these factors together.

Research:

• Occupational Information – What is the occupation really like?
• Educational Requirements – What knowledge and training do you need?
• Advancement and Growth – What does the employment future hold?
• Target Organizations – What type of organizations do you want to work for?
• Review and Evaluate Alternatives – Does this information "match" with your self-assessment?
• Action Plan – Determine your course of action – narrow down the occupation options and select your top occupation(s) you will pursue.

Preparation:

• Company Research – Identify all the organizations in which you are interested.
• Targeted Resumes and Cover Letters – Focus your resumes and cover letters to the specific job and company.
• Informational Interviews – Talk to people in the field about the job. Learn if this is what you really want to do.
• Interview Practice – Read and practice possible interview questions. Find an interview partner to assist you.
• Prospect All Resources – Use newspapers, Internet sources, agencies, head hunters, etc., though the majority of people do not find work through this method, it can work.
• Network – Identify and build your circle of contacts that can help you find your next opportunity. Over 50% of jobs are found through "someone knowing someone!"
• Know Your Market – Research the salaries for the region and job. Read and practice for top-notch salary negotiations.

Career Values Sort:

Values dictate your actions. You will choose or not choose to do something based on your values. Below is an exercise to help you become aware of your most important values. Values are something you highly prize and take action on in your life.

5=Always Valued – GO! You must have this as a part of your life.

4=Often Valued –This is important to you, but secondary.

3=Sometimes Valued – This value is neutral – you can have it as a part of your life or not.

2=Seldom Valued – This value is not important to you.

1=Never Valued – STOP! You don’t like it or need it as a part of your life.

Rate the importance of the following values below:

___Affiliation—Be recognized as a member of a particular organization.

____Artistic Creativity—Engage in creative work in any of several art forms.

____Intellectual Status—Be regarded as very well-informed and a strong theorist, as one acknowledged as an “expert in the field.

____Work With Others—Have close relations with group; work as a team to common goals.

____Knowledge—Engage myself in pursuit of knowledge, truth and understanding.

____Time Freedom—Have responsibilities I can work at according to my time schedule; no specific working hours required.

____Creativity—Create new ideas, programs, organized structures or anything else not following format developed by others.

____Public Contact—Have a lot of day-to-day contact with people.

____Status—Impress or gain the respect of friends, family and community by the nature and/or level of responsibility of my work.

____Physical Challenge—Have a job that requires bodily strength, speed, or dexterity, or agility.

____Adventure—Have work duties that involve frequent risk-taking.

____Advancement—Be able to get ahead rapidly, gaining opportunities for growth and seniority from work well done.

____Help Society—Do something to contribute to the betterment of the world.

____Moral Fulfillment—Feel that my work is contributing to ideals I feel are very important.

____Make Decisions—Have the power to decide courses of action, policies, etc.-a judgment job.

____Excitement—Experience a high degree of stimulation or frequent novelty and drama on the job.

____Security—Be assured of keeping my job and a reasonable financial reward.

____Profit, Gain—Have a strong likelihood of accumulating large amounts of money or other material gain through ownership, profit sharing, commissions, merit pay increases and the like.

____Location—Find a place to live (town, geographic area) conducive to my lifestyle, a desirable home base for my leisure, learning, and work life.

____Job Tranquility—Avoid pressures and "the rat race" in job role and work setting.

____Precision Work—Deal with tasks that have exact specifications, that require careful, accurate attention to detail.

____Work Alone—Do projects by myself, without any amount of contact with others.

____Work Under Pressure—Work in time-pressured circumstances, where there is little or no margin for error, or with demanding personal relationships.

____Recognition—Get positive feedback and public credit for work well done.

____Exercise Competence—Demonstrate a high degree of proficiency in job skills and knowledge; show above average effectiveness.

____Creative Expression—Be able to express in writing and in person my ideals concerning job and how I might improve it; have opportunities for experimentation and innovation.

____Competition—Engage in activities which pit my abilities against others.

____Influence People—Be in a position to change attitudes or opinions of other people.

____Friendships—Develop close personal relationships with people as a result of work activity.

____Aesthetics—Be involved in studying or appreciating the beauty of things, ideas, etc.

____Community—Live in a town or city where I can meet my neighbors and become active in local politics or service projects.

____Change and Variety—Have work responsibilities frequently changed in content and setting.

____Work On Frontiers of Knowledge—Work in research and development, generating information and new ideas in the academic, scientific, or business communities.

____Power and Authority—Control the work activities or help steer the destinies of others.

____Fast Pace—Work in circumstances where there is high pace activity and work done rapidly.

____Stability—Have a work routine and job duties that are largely predictable and not likely to change over long period of time.

____High Earnings Anticipated—Be able to purchase essentials and the luxuries of life I wish.

____Help Others—Be involved in helping people directly, either individually or in small groups.

____Supervision—Have a job in which I am directly responsible for work done by others.

Top Eight Values:

Prioritize and list your top eight values in order:

1.________________________ 5._________________________

2.________________________ 6._________________________

3.________________________ 7._________________________

4.________________________ 8._________________________

What were the results? Are you surprised? Or is this what you expected? Many times you don’t realize something is or is not a value until you are faced with acting upon it.

The next step is to discover how/if these values are occurring in your life today.

 In Search of Values

List your eight top values from the Career Values Summary Sheet and identify whether each value is being expressed in your personal life and/or present/past work experiences. Please rank/list them in order of importance.

Value 1.___________________________________

Personal life/Work? Please explain.

Value 2.__________________________________

Personal life/Work? Please explain.

Value 3.___________________________________

Personal life/Work? Please explain.

Value 4.__________________________________

Personal life/Work? Please explain.

Value 5.__________________________________

Personal life/Work? Please explain.

Value 6.___________________________________

Personal life/Work? Please explain.

Value 7.____________________________________

Personal life/Work? Please explain.

Value 8_____________________________________

Personal life/Work? Please explain.

Accomplishments:

Accomplishments relate to the results of your job performance. Each job has a set of expectations (objectives, metrics) for which you are evaluated. You should take credit for all that you do and contribute to the department, division and company. Try to avoid vague or abstract statements such as "increased staff morale" or "took care of issues". Instead, describe how you improved morale or what specifically you did to resolve issues.

Here are some examples:

• You increased revenues.
• You reduced costs.
• You took the initiative to solve a problem.
• You led changes that improved quality, time or customer focus that saved time and money.
• You conceived and/or created a new function, service, department or product that filled a need.
• You devised and carried through a complex plan or process, perhaps for the first time.
• You successfully handled an unusual/emergency situation or crisis.
• You successfully completed a special project with positive results.
• You received awards or commendations (i.e. Employee of the Month).
• Your ideas or suggestions helped increase the performance of a team or group.
• You trained others contributing to productivity.
• You improved the morale of the team.
• You met and/or exceeded the expectations of your job (frequently, consistently, all the time).

P.A.R. Process:

The P.A.R. Process comes from the Accomplishments you identified previously. P.A.R. stands for:

P = Problem or Issue or Expectation

A = Action performed

R = Results achieved

PAR stories are vital parts of your job search process. They are the means by which you distance you and your resume from the competition, and, when you get that all-important interview, they are the means by which you prove you have the skills you say you have.

Look at PAR stories as an easy way for you to describe your accomplishments.

For each accomplishment, identify the problem or issue or expectation of the job that you were trying to address. Then, detail the various action steps that you took. Finally, identify the results of the action(s) you took. Can you put a metric, a value on the result? For example:

Problem: The legal department did not have a good system of maintaining records of firms and attorneys that had been retained. When the department wanted to locate and select an attorney for a new case, much of the legwork had to be repeated over and over again, costing us time and money, and perhaps even using the wrong attorneys.

Action: I researched the current process of identifying and selecting attorneys. I identified the types of lawsuits and issues, as well as the attorneys and firms we used, the types of cases they had handled, the outcomes of these cases, their fee structure, and any other pertinent information that the legal department would want or need. I developed a database using Access to track all of this information and set up queries to extract information as needed.

Results: The database saved the department valuable time and effort, improved the utilization of outside attorney resources, and saved the department and the company more than $50,000 in fees in one year and additional potential savings relating to better selection of attorneys for pending lawsuits.

P.A.R. Story: Developed an Access database that streamlined the selection and utilization of outside attorneys, saving the company more than $50,000 in attorney fees in one year. (This statement goes on the resume as a bullet point.)

At the same time, note the skill(s) you utilized with each P.A.R. These relate to the skills you will include in your Summary on your resume. The accomplishment statements on your resume will support the skills identified in your Summary.

This process will carry forward to your interviews. When you are asked what your skills or strengths are, you can elaborate with a P.A.R. story that supports your contention of possessing a particular skill or set of skills.

The next step is to write the accomplishment statements for the resume.

Accomplishment statements should include results whenever possible, and they can also include the action performed. Results can be quantitative ($$, #’s, %) or qualitative. Accomplishment statements should begin with an action verb, they are formatted as bullets and they should be brief (about 1 or 2 lines) – save the details for the interview.

Create vivid descriptions of your background, and action verbs are the tools that help you achieve that.

Examples of Accomplishment Statements:

• Received award for providing outstanding assistance to another team member in order to complete the high volume of work.
• Initiated and developed a new Access database (with the assistance of an analyst) that reduced the time needed to track the status of pending checks and wires.
• Increased the standard recovery by 50%, from $20,000 to $30,000 per month.
• Designed work plan to streamline the securities remittance process using FASTER methodology, which projected a reduction of analyst time by 90%.
• Developed and implemented a training module for customer service representatives, call volume and customer satisfaction.
• Consulted current and prospective clients on Bill Presentment and Direct Mail Marketing strategies and programs. Achieved 103% of Annual Quota (Individual) at end of 11^th month.
• Exceeded standard portfolio issues by a ratio of 3:1, eliminating the need to hire 2 additional researchers and other associated costs, savings in excess of $50,000 annually.
• Improved standard turn around time in resolving issues by approximately 10 days, or 80%.
• Received 3 awards for excellent External Customer Satisfaction.
• Maintained career level every month for 7 months in a row.
• Highest score in New Hire Training among 20 students.
• Reduced department’s research requests and repeat requests by 88%, from 2,500 weekly to 300 requests weekly.
• Decreased negotiator response time by 50% by streamlining approval process.
• Coordinating process to improve Loss Mitigation Systems that will result in an estimated annual savings of $646,000.
• Reduced premium difference research work by 95%, from 9,000 to 400.
• Eliminated two floater positions cutting payroll costs by more than $3,000 per month.
• Received two Employee-of-the-Month awards.
• Doubled personal production figures, now fielding between 80 and 100 calls daily.
• Cited by senior trainer as "An asset to our training team…professional, knowledgeable…displays great patience when helping the trainees."
• Cross-trained to assume other department responsibilities when needed.
• Attained an "exceptional performance" rating for productivity by exceeding daily standards by an average of 50%.
• Assist the department in other areas to relieve backlog, cross-train fellow team members while continuing to maintain high level of productivity.
• Decreased customer response time by 38% and decreased cost per loan by $0.02 (saving more than $55,000 per year).
• Improved the process of the monthly Marketing Campaign Analysis report. Identified and increased the level of automation of the report minimizing the time to generate the report.
• Present timely analysis to increase the efficiency of the marketing effort by identifying customer segments that are more likely to purchase, thereby increasing campaign response rates and conversion while lowering cost-per-response and cost per sale.
• Achieved Top Performer Status consecutively for 9 months.
• Consistently performed all duties with at least 98% accuracy and a production level over 100% by finding ways to streamline many projects and department work flows.
• Increased the department’s completion ratio by 21%, in turn decreasing response time to customers by 42%.
• Attained processing rate of 147% of standard, an increase of 22.5% from prior year.
• Decreased training time by 25% as well as increasing training efficiency by utilizing new materials and training theory.
• Exceed daily call quota by 50%, consistently achieve loan referrals for funding above expectations and maintain a high level of accuracy and customer satisfaction.
• Developed and implemented over a dozen IT projects in coordination with the IT department significantly improving speed and accuracy of premium and commission processing, resulting in aggregate annual savings in excess of $750,000.
• Implemented on the average, over 10 new internally taught classes per year, resulting in an annual training budget reduction of more than $1 million.
• Met or exceeded listening in quality standards, while attaining expected call volume statistics, and achieved excellent low customer repeat ratings.
• Handle an average of 270 loans per month, as much as 50% greater than team members who average of 180-230.
• Suggested the creation of a power key that shortened documentation time throughout customer service and resulted in a cost savings of $4,800 annually
• Completed every department training class with a score of 100%.
• Reduced the printing cost of several direct mail campaigns by nearly 75%.
• Enrolled 10% of non-participants in 401(k) Plan by promoting benefits of plan via integrated, personalized communication sent directly to their homes.
• Empowered employee team, identified market potential, and realigned sales functions resulting in a 57% increase in product distribution.
• Uncovered invoicing error for mail distribution services resulting in $10,000 refund to company. Implemented new billing procedures to reduce future errors.

Ideal Job Summary Sheet:

· List your top eight PAR accomplishments:

· List your top eight Values from the Values Sort Exercise:

· Describe/list your three top PAR stories:

· What do your top PAR Accomplishments say about your Interests? What type of work are you interested in doing next?

· What do your top PAR Accomplishments demonstrate about your Personality? What type of work environment would support your work style?

· Location, Location, Location! Where would you like to live and work?

· How much money would you like to make?

· What type of perks, work schedule and benefits would you like?

· Who do you want to work for and with?

· After reviewing your self-assessment information, what did you discover about yourself? What occupations would you like to explore/pursue?

· What are your next steps in your Career Transition process?

· Timeline: Create short and long term goals – what by when – in order to reach your new opportunities in the world of work.

· List three short term goals (6 months or less):

· List three long-term goals (6 months and beyond):

· Within in five years I would like to: