Career Assessments

Career Development Process and Planning

Our model is founded on the premise that career development is a lifelong, cyclical process.  As individuals typically engage in career development multiple times over their professional lives, this foundational understanding in how to assess, explore, and pursue opportunities prepares them to handle such transitions effectively over time.

Access – Explore – Pursue

Discovering the right career path is a personal journey that requires self-reflection, exploration, and an awareness of your skills, interests, and values.  With each experience you gain, not only will you enhance your resume; you will also have the opportunity to pinpoint the career path that resonates most with you.

At the core of the career development process is helping individuals gain clarity about their abilities, interests, values, and goals. Following this, students consider how their educational choices align with potential career paths. As they become familiar with available resources and options, students establish goals, expand their professional network, pursue opportunities, and hone career readiness skills and competencies that today’s employers and graduate schools seek in candidates.

Start your career journey early by creating semester and yearly action plans. Explore our Successful Start resource for additional guidance.

Understanding yourself

Discover your potential through an assessment of your skills, interests, personality, and more. Uncover the themes that define your unique strengths and areas for growth. Then, let's have a conversation about how our assessments can guide you towards success.

Skills:  Abilities that are developed and refined over time through practice and learning

Through completing a liberal arts education, you are already developing a number of skills.  Think about your experiences in class, leadership opportunities, extracurricular activities, work experience, and community service, and begin to identify your key talents, strengths, and skills.   For example:  Problem Solving, Interpersonal skills, Organizational skills, Communication skills – writing, presenting, Knowledge of Diverse Cultures, or Creativity.

Interests: Topics you find enjoyable, intriguing, or meaningful

If you enjoy completing a task, you are more likely to be successful at performing that task in your career.  What are you doing when you feel most energized?  When you reflect back on your past accomplishments, when did you feel most proud?   Reflect on the following questions to gain insight into your interests, and then look for trends.  

• How do I prefer to learn?
• How do I assist others (e.g., advising, listening, connecting, collaborating, providing information)?
• Which types of books do I tend to gravitate toward in a bookstore?
• What subjects or areas am I curious about exploring further?

Values: What matters to you

You are more likely to feel satisfied in your work if that position aligns well with your values.  Lifestyle issues such as location, compensation, flexibility, and length of commute should be considered when considering a position.  In addition, general values should be considered when exploring particular fields and industries.  How important is it to you to have a sense of recognition or achievement? Do you prefer to work independently or as part of a team?   

Work Values Matcher – this quick card sort helps you to identify careers that match your personal work values. 

Additional assessments that we recommend

People tend to have the most satisfaction in careers that allow them to express what comes naturally to them. Do you prefer to learn by doing hands-on activities or by applying logic and analyzing? Do you prefer step-by-step instructions or to be allowed to just work it out? Consider this free personality assessment that provides feedback on how you think, how you work with others, and how you apply yourself.

Career Personality Profiler from Truity uses personality and interest questions.

My Next Move from O'NET is an interest inventory and also provides some basic recommendations for the types of work you might enjoy.  

The Find Occupations feature, also from O*NET, is a great way to start learning about what people do in certain careers. Select careers of interest in the Career Clusters drop-down, and you can read more about the skills and education required for those occupations.