Swot Analysis for Your Career
March 8, 2009 by admin
Filed under Career Planning
When speaking of a SWOT analysis is a way to do some serious self-reflecting and find out what your interior or exterior are the strengths and weaknesses. Think of it as a professional on the list with you!
SWOT means strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. While reluctant to use the word “weakness” and that is very negative, using the word “gaps” is not an appealing acronym (SWOS) as FODA!
Here are a few ideas to build your FODA.
Internal factors
Strengths – Internal positive aspects that are under control and where you can take in planning a new career. These include:
- Work Experience
- Education, including value-added features
- Strong technical knowledge within their field (eg hardware, software, programming languages)
- Specific transferable skills (eg communication, teamwork, leadership skills
- Personal characteristics (eg, a strong work ethic, self discipline, ability to work under pressure, creativity, optimism, or a high energy level
- Good contacts / successful networking
- Interaction with professional organizations
Weaknesses – Internal negative aspects that they control and can plan for improvement. These include:
- The lack of work experience
- Low GPA, wrong major
- The lack of focus, lack of self-knowledge, lack of job skills
- Weak technical knowledge
- Weak skills (leadership, interpersonal communication, teamwork)
- Weak job search
- Negative personal characteristics (eg, poor work ethic, lack of discipline, lack of motivation, indecisiveness, shyness, too emotional
External factors
Opportunity – Positive external conditions that do not control, but you can plan to take advantage. Here are some opportunities for the sale:
- Positive trends in your field that will create more jobs (eg, growth, globalization, technological advances)
- Opportunities that could have on the area of improving education
- Field is particularly in need of your skill set
- Opportunities that could have through greater self-knowledge, the more specific objectives of work
- Opportunities for advancement in their field
- Professional development opportunities in their field
- Career you’ve chosen provides unique opportunities
- Geography
- Strong network
Threats – Negative external conditions that do not control, but the effect of which may be capable of decreasing. These include:
To improve the SWOT, here are some other questions to ask about yourself:
Strengths:
- What are their advantages?
- What do you do well?
- Why did you decide to enter the field to come to graduation?
- What were the motivating factors and influences?
- Do these factors still represent some of its inherent strengths?
- What needs do you expect to fill within your organization?
- What have been your most notable achievements?
- To what do you attribute your success?
- How to measure your success?
- What knowledge or experience that you bring to the company that joins is not available to the organization before?
- What is your greatest asset?
Weaknesses
- What could be improved?
- What are you doing wrong?
- What should I avoid?
- What are your professional weaknesses?
- How do they affect your job performance? (These can include weakness in technical areas or in management or interpersonal skills.)
- Think about your most unpleasant experiences at school or in the past jobs and consider whether any aspect of your personal or professional life could be a cause.
Opportunities
- Where are the prospects facing you?
- What is the “state of the art” in their area of specialization?
- Are you doing everything possible to increase your exposure to this area?
- What training and education can add to their credentials to properly position you for more opportunities?
- To add an MBA or other evidence in his favor?
- The speed with which they can advance in your career?
Useful opportunities can come from such things as:
o Changes in technology and markets on both a broad and industry-specific scale
o Changes in government policy related to their field
o Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes, etc.
Threats
- What obstacles do you face?
- Are the requirements for your desired job field changing?
- Does changing technology threaten your prospective position?
- What is the current trend line for your personal area of expertise?
- Could your area of interest be fading in comparison with more emergent fields?
- Is your chosen field subject to internal politics that will lead to conflict?
- Is there any way to change the politics or to perhaps defuse your involvement in potential disputes?
- How might the economy negatively affect your future company and your work group?
- Will your future company provide enough access to new challenges to keep you sharp — and marketable — in the event of sudden unemployment?
Explore their own self-perception of their strengths, but also to a prospective employer in the head as you consider your strong points. Avoid false modesty, but also be realistic and brutally honest with yourself. Begin by simply making a list of words that describe you, chances are many of these characteristics, strengths of their commitment.
One of his greatest strengths can love the work you do. Learn to “follow your bliss” is a critical component of managing your career. Some people know from an early age what type of work will make them happy. For others, nailed to the self-knowledge that leads to career fulfillment is a process of exploring interests, skills, personality, learning style, and values.
In assessing its weaknesses, think about what future employers might consider the areas that could be improved. Now facing its fragility can give you a big advantage in career planning.
As humans, we feel relatively difficult to identify the areas where we are weak. However, this assessment helps to identify areas that may need improvement. If you identify a skill that you know is in your field, but are weak in that skill area, it is necessary to take measures to improve this skill. Past performance evaluation, and even your notes and comments from school teachers to provide valuable feedback.
Doing a SWOT Analysis will not only help guide you toward a career you will enjoy that will also give you an idea of how the market so that you can get that dream job you want. From this analysis, will have a roadmap that shows you how to capitalize on their strengths and minimize or eliminate their weaknesses. You must use this map to the opportunities and avoid or reduce the threats.
After analyzing their strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities, you must use that information to plan how to market itself.
The marketing planning process involves a three-step process:
1. Determining objectives
2. Development of marketing strategies
3. A program of action strategies.
Objectives—Define the goals of his career goals. What is your ideal job at graduation (or the work they would like to transition from his current job)? What are some other positions you could accept? What is your five year career goal?
Marketing Strategies-wide marketing strategy or “game plan” for achieving its objectives. What are companies and organizations that will get your target to the objectives of your ideal job? How will you communicate with these companies? Identify the strategies that they use all resources available to you as your personal network and a partnership with a mentor.
Action Programs, in accordance with the principles of marketing, marketing strategies must be specific programs that respond to a series of questions including: What will be done? When are you going to do? Who is responsible for doing so? Its primary task is the definition of schedules and deadlines for the career and company information that you identified in step marketing strategy.
So now that you have identified some key questions to ask when considering a career change, how do you know what the right career field for you?