Why self-assess? 'Self assessment' is your ability to reflect and articulate your abilities, interests, work style preferences and values. This knowledge serves as your criteria when evaluating the pros and cons of different career paths and specific jobs.
Why is this important? Because career satisfaction isn't solely correlated to what you are good at (your abilities). Everyone's sense of career satisfaction is also influenced by what we enjoy and feels meaningful to us, how we work (including factors like number of hours we work and how our days are structured), the environment in which we work, and the people who we work with.
- Read our Science article on why skills, interests and values matter in career choice for biomedical scientists.
- Values are a really important component to career satisfaction. Don't believe us? Read this article on why values matter in career choice
Graduate school and a postdoc is an excellent time to reflect on how your interests, values and preferences have evolved (or solidified!) and what you want to do in your career. An online assessment tool can help!
Online tools to help you reflect
There are a number of free, online assessment tools that help you explore your values, interests, abilities and personal work style. Here are two well-developed ones:
For basic and biomedical scientists: MyIDP
- Read the FAQ about myIDP: What's an IDP?
- Complete the Assessment section of Science Career's myIDP at myidp.sciencecareers.org by setting up a free account.
For social and population scientists: ImaginePhD
- On ImaginePhD, you can complete Skills, Interests, and Values Assessments, get matched with families of jobs that suit you, and then set goals for learning more about those careers.
- Make a free account and then click the Assessments tab to get stated.
What do you do with the results of your assessment?
- Schedule a counseling appointment. One of our PhD-career counselors can discuss your assessment tool results and your next steps.
- Learn more about careers suggested by your assessment. Visit the Every Month Series pages to find out how you can explore career options.
- Explore career options in a peer group. Consider the MIND (Making INformed Decision) Career Exploration Program, or check out campus organizations that do work in non-academic areas. This is a great way to find community and explore careers in a hands-on but low-stakes environment.
- Ask people about them in informational interviews. Your self-assessment is also the basis for how you will determine whether jobs might be a good fit for you or not. Things that come up in your self-assessment as important are things you can ask people in informational interviews about specifically to get an idea for whether their field/position would be a good fit for you.
- Get some experience. Visit the GSICE (Graduate Student Internship for Career Exploration) program
- Keep them and revisit them. Your self-assessment can be ongoing. Each time you have a work experience that you particularly enjoyed or didn't enjoy, take a few minutes to reflect on what you liked or didn't like about that experience. You can keep a journal or document where you keep your reflections for reference later. It's also a good idea to take an online self-assessment once a year, as your experiences may inform what your values are.
