Your interests, personality traits, skills, values, and beliefs impact your career decision making. Self-awareness helps you generate a better list of career options that matches who you are as an individual.

Interests
Identifying and acknowledging your interests will help you decide which occupations to investigate and possibly pursue. Ask yourself: What do I take pleasure in? What do I enjoy?

Personality
How do you interact with the world? Where do you direct your energy? What kind of information do you naturally notice? How do you make decisions? The answers to these types of questions reflect different aspects of your personality. Depending on your particular personality traits, you will prefer certain occupations over others.

Skills
Skills are your abilities and areas of strength that are learned through many different activities, including work, extracurricular and volunteer experiences, and hobbies. You can discover what your skills are by becoming aware of those things that you do well.

Values
What is important to you? The answer to this question will be a determining factor when deciding upon an occupational field. Examples include: "Making use of your abilities," "Being busy all the time," and "Working alone."

Beliefs
Beliefs are positive or negative thoughts you hold about yourself. Your beliefs about yourself influence which career goals you set and whether you take action toward achieving such goals.

How do I assess myself?
There are several methods of self-assessment.

1. Talking It Out
   You can assess yourself by meeting with a Career Counselor or Career Specialist. You will discuss your interests, needs, and values by looking at previous work and volunteer experiences, extracurricular activities, education, and interests/hobbies.
2. Assessment Tools
   You can complete an an interest test (Strong Interest Inventory) and a personality test (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) which can assist you in becoming aware of your core interest areas and your preferences for such things as what kinds of information you naturally notice and how you make decisions.
3. SIGI 3 and WisCareers
   Computer-based self-assessment programs to help you identify your core interests, values, and skill areas, as well as link these assessment results to specific career fields and occupations.
4. Career Discovery Center (CDC)
   Various resources including card sorts, books, worksheets and readings are available to help students learn about themselves. Career Associates are available to help you navigate the CDC and find the best resources for you.