Strengths and Your Career

By: Jake

Most people believe that one of the keys to enjoying life is to find a profession you love doing. Many argue that this is even more important than the income you earn from a job. But in a field as large as business, it seems impossible to find the perfect job for you. Everyone enjoys different things, and with so many jobs to decide between, how can you find the one that is right for you? I believe the answer to this question is to play to your strengths.

Clifton, an online publisher, published a  quiz which when taken will reveal your top 5 strengths. These are an essential part of who you are and play a pivotal role not only to which job you will enjoy, but which you will thrive in. You can purchase access to the quiz here. Studies show that it benefits people in very small increments to work on improving weaknesses but there can be exponential growth when focusing on strengths. There are also many physical and psychological benefits to playing to your strengths. These can be found at this website.

After taking the quiz, I found that my strengths in order are: Analytical, Woo, Relator, Consistency, and Includer. At first I did not agree with them. I thought the names sounded dumb and that the quiz was all wrong. But once I took a closer look it started to make more sense. Analytical means I analyze everything. I think through decisions and choose what to do based off of what will benefit me the most. Woo describes my extroverted personality and how I love talking to and meeting new people. Along with this, Relator means I love getting to know people, finding things we have in common and having intellectual conversations with them. Consistency describes my desire for clearly set rules and expectations and for these to be met time and time again. Lastly, Includer reflects how I always want everyone to feel apart of the group and to not be left out.

Knowing what my strengths are and understanding how they work will play a key role in finding a job that I both enjoy and thrive in for the future. Strengths also play a leading role in which classes you should take, how you study, and who your friends are. Based on my specific strengths, I will want to have a future leadership role where I will be able to meet new people frequently. I will want to be able to think critically and analytically at the same time as maintaining personal relationships with both customers and coworkers. Because these strengths line up with those needed for a field in business, I believe my major is fitting for my personality. For some, this may cause them to rethink their major or classes, and that's perfectly okay.

At the end of the day what matters is finding a job you enjoy that can support you and your family. Playing to your specific set of strengths is the best way of finding a career you are both good at and enjoy, which will likely lead to a happy and successful life.


Works Cited

Gallup, Inc. Clifton StrengthsFinder. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2017.

"Strengths." Big Energy Coaching. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2017.