Looking at Your Strengths and Weaknesses

When planning your career, it is often helpful to evaluate your strong and weak points.

Try asking yourself the following questions:

• What are the strong points of my character and personality?
• What are the weak points of my character and personality?
• Are my weak points something I can put a positive spin on, or are they something that I need to start working on to control?

Strong Points

It is important to evaluate your strong points, as not only will they lead you to a suitable career, but having a good idea of what they are will also be very useful in an interview situation. You should always make your prospective employer aware just how valuable you will be! If you're having trouble getting started, take a look at the following list for some examples:

• commitment
• determination
• ability to handle conflict
• initiative
• ability to make decisions
• commercial awareness
• enthusiasm
• ability to strike the balance between the big picture and detail
• strength of will
• ability to take risks
• being personally organised
• competitiveness
• creativity
• adaptability and willingness to change
• judgement
• quick thinking and getting to the point
• self-confidence
• sensitivity to people and situation
• willingness to take responsibility

Weak Points

Try to view weak points as limitations, or areas for improvement and look for positive ways of presenting them. For example, you might know that you can be stubborn, but looked at it from a different perspective, this could be seen as tenacity, and a willingness to stick with something. This is not about hiding from the truth, but more about putting a positive interpretation on a negative characteristic.

You will often discover that a weakness is often nothing more than an excess of a strength. Control the excess and you have removed the weakness! For example: