This is the essential question. Your career goals and objectives must be based upon specific strengths. Spend enough time to sort out your thoughts. Successful placement is the result of self-knowledge and enthusiasm. Several questions may help to focus your thoughts.
Here are a series of questions frequently found in career and job hunting books. They are well worth pondering:
What you do best is not always the same as what you have done in the past. You need to be open to new possibilities, but the past is often a good predictor of what you will do well in the future. Do not fool yourself by pretending that you are better at something than you really are or that you can gain a new competency without much time and effort. As you develop a list of what you do best, look for confirmation in the judgment of others through awards, grades, promotions, and favorable comments. However, do not overly emphasize the judgment of others where you are genuinely confident and can provide evidence of ability.
Develop a list of what you do best. You may want to discuss this list with someone you feel comfortable with and who can be objective. Don't ignore hobbies and leisure-time objectives. Often they represent skills and experiences that can be applied professionally.
It may be helpful to ask people who know you well what they think that you do best. They might identify things that you had not thought of. Sometimes we are too critical of ourselves and may be reluctant to identify a strength as a genuine strength. Others may give us a more realistic estimate. Other approaches to creating a list of what you do best might include
What you find most rewarding may not be the same as what you do best. What you most enjoy doing is important to the employer since it relates to enthusiasm, dedication, reliability, and the ability to tolerate ambiguity.
You could approach this question from a negative perspective: based on past experience what sort of activities should be avoided in the future? Some information science positions, especially in libraries, do not pay well enough to compensate for work that is merely tolerable. The work itself needs to be fruitful and personally rewarding. With so many different kinds of information work, you should be able to find one that will be personally rewarding.
What kind of a person you are is a difficult, overly-broad question. Yet it is important. The emphasis here is on characteristics or attributes likely to affect professional performance. Everyone can change and improve. Sometimes the baptism of fire in the first professional position may result in a change in personality and manner. Still, we should avoid a position that requires an assertive, sales-oriented personality if that would be alien and uncomfortable. A fund-raising position involving cold calls would not be a good fit for a reserved and somewhat shy collection developer. What type of professional position best matches your personality, style, and manner?
After reflecting on these three questions, you should be able
to identify and discuss particular strengths and preferences and relate
these to position seeking. You must be able to build on strengths. You
must be able to tell others what your strengths are, especially in the
employment interview. Be willing to fill gaps and add to strengths, but
only when that is reasonable and matches your knowledge of yourself.
