Job searches and career transitions can be daunting. To achieve the result you want, take time to reflect on your interests, values, skills, and goals — both personal and professional. St. Olaf is committed to supporting you during this critical process, providing advice and tools to assist you.
Self-assessment is the process of learning about yourself through defining your interests, values, skills, and abilities. The process includes analyzing past and current experiences and accomplishments to help give you a sense of direction. While no assessment can perfectly describe who you are or what your career should be, they are valuable in helping you to consider options that you may not have previously considered.
Guided Self-Assessments
The Piper Center offers two guided assessments at no charge to alumni.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) Assessment — The MBTI is a personality type inventory that promotes awareness of the self and others. It is a widely-used, nonjudgmental tool that can help you gain an understanding of four natural preferences in how people gain energy, gather information, make decisions, and approach life.
Strong Interest Inventory® — By giving you insight into your interests, preferences, and personal styles, the Strong can enable you to identify specific courses, jobs, internships, and activities that you’re likely to enjoy.
If you feel that these assessments would be beneficial to your process of discernment, please contact Jenele Grassle at grassl1@stolaf.com.
Self-Directed Assessments
Lynda.com — Tutorials on Lynda.com can help you discover what you’re best at doing and how you can leverage these strengths and abilities in your professional life.
O*Net Interest Profiler Short Form — This instrument is a web-based, self-assessment career exploration tool that can help you discover work activities and occupations related to your interests. The instrument is composed of 60 items and measures six types of occupational interests.
Minnesota Careers Interest Assessment — This assessment can help you discover how your interests relate to various occupations. The MNCareers interest assessment is a simple 42-statement quiz.
O*Net Work Importance Profiler — This career exploration tool can help you identify occupations that you may find satisfying, based on the similarity between your work values (like achievement, autonomy, and conditions of work) and the characteristics of occupations that may interest you.
Career Info Net Skills Profiler — You can use the Skills Profiler to create a list of skills and then match them to job types that use those skills.
Iseek Skills Assessment — Everyone has things they love to do and skills they like to use. This assessment enables you to rate yourself on 35 different skills and then to see which occupations are a match for the skills that are important to you.
Career Key — Motivated Skills, Dependable Strengths — This assessment can help you identify the skills that motivate you, and can offer a powerful approach for guiding the direction of your career.
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