Match Your Career Goals with Your Strengths

I can't imagine doing work that requires even an average amount of mathematical calculation. That's just not my strength. Imagine highly successful people like Mark Zuckerberg doing work other than what he is doing now. He would probably not be as successful. I'd like to talk about this now because I've seen too many people waste their time applying for work that clearly are not aligned with their talents. They often fail during the screening process or if the process is bad, they get hired and fail miserably at work.

I believe all people have a particular set of aptitudes that suit certain kind of work. I think it is a good investment of time and effort to discover one's strengths and then align one's career plans with it. After discovering your strengths it is important to enhance them by exposing yourself to activities that will use it similar to doing a specific exercise to grow a particular muscle. For example if you found that you are good in written communication, read books on how to become a better writer and/or write a blog to exercise your creative writing muscle. If you like dabbling into computers of programming, try working on a coding project. train yourself to expand your coding prowess.

I also highly recommend Clifton StrengthFinder. It will help you discover what strengths or "themes" you have that you can capitalize on. You can download the full list of themes here. It is also a good idea to learn more about your personality and see which careers fit you. The web is full of free online personality test. Here's a really good one.

Discovering your strengths will help you choose a career your can do well in. Find work that you can be good and enjoy doing and you will be one happy, productive worker. Your success will push you up to bigger roles in the organization that you are in. Make sure that you do not stray away from your strengths and your source of professional bliss.

Starting Ahead: Graduating with Distinct Career Advantage

Let's accept it, life is not fair. Not all graduates are created equal, Some are automatically ahead on the account of their university's name. How does one with less academic reputation build another kind of reputation that  prospective employers will find attractive?

If you are on your first year in college now, the primary thing you need to do is embrace the fact that what you will do now will have significant impact on your future. This is it! You had your fun. High school is over It's time for a little bit more seriousness.  The keyword here is decision. Decide to be a kick-ass college student. Rise above mediocrity. Remember when you graduate you will be joining hundreds of thousands of diploma-wielding  jobless individuals. Here are my suggestions for becoming a potentially awesome job candidate of the future.