The 6-Step Personal & Professional Assessment for Your Resume
Creating an effective resume starts with deep self-knowledge. This 6-step personal and professional assessment guides you through a structured process to clearly understand who you are, what you can offer, and where you want to go in your career. Step 1 begins with writing your biography — reviewing your education, work experience, professional associations, and paraprofessional activities. Then move on to identify your Knowledge (Step 2), Expertise/Skills (Step 3), Interpersonal skills — including strengths and areas for improvement (Step 4), Interests (Step 5), and finally your Core Values (Step 6). By completing exercises such as describing a typical work week, listing achievements, choosing adjectives that define you, and ranking your top values, you will build a clear picture of your profile.
[N.B. This article is a follow-up to the first step in the active job search process; see the reference: https://www.decisioncareermap.com/blog/how-to-write-a-powerful-resume-a-complete-step-by-step-guide]
Your personal and professional assessment is conducted in six steps. (1) First, write your biography; this will help you identify the nature of your knowledge (2), (3) your skills (3), your interpersonal skills (4), your interests (5), and finally your values (6).
Step 1 – Your Biography.
This is the very foundation of your personal and professional assessment. Over the course of your life, you have acquired and developed qualities that are unique to you. Your assessment will help you take a positive look at the past to highlight its key points. Your biography will allow you to review your education, your jobs, your extracurricular or professional activities, and your hobbies. It will serve as the framework that helps you identify your skills and interests.
Remember to be sincere and positive.
Education:
1- Education (years, institution, degrees earned)
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2- Your advanced training courses (year, institution, field): (Think of all the courses you have taken: foreign language, word processing, etc.)
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Work experience:
Think about all the jobs, trainings you’ve had. Every job counts…
1- What was your last job?
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2- How long did you hold that position?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------How did you get it?
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3- What were your main duties and responsibilities?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Describe a typical work week.
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Describing a typical work week may be more revealing than you think, as it allows you to take stock of your professional activities as they actually are. If your work varies from week to week, provide a monthly summary.
4- When analyzing your tasks over the course of a week, what do you notice?
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5- What aspects of your job do you find most enjoyable? Why?
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6- What would you like to change or improve? Why?
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7- Have you ever modified certain tasks related to your work? Which ones? How?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What problems did you solve? What were the results, and how did the company benefit?
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8- Have you ever experienced difficult moments or situations? Which ones? Why?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What is the worst situation you have ever been in, and how did you get through it?
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9- What is the achievement you are most proud of? Why?
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10- If your colleagues were asked to describe you, how would they describe you?
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11- Do you hold the same position? If not, why?
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REPEAT THIS EXERCISE FOR EACH POSITION YOU HAVE HELD. DON’T FORGET TEMPORARY JOBS.
Professional associations:
1- Are you a member of any professional associations, and in what capacity? (Date of membership, category, name of the association)
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2- Do you participate in certain activities related to your occupation (training, work)?
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Paraprofessional activities:
(All volunteer, sports, and social activities)
1- What activities are you involved in outside of work hours? How long have you been participating?
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2- What benefits do you derive from them?
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Step 2 – Your Knowledge.
In this step, you will highlight the knowledge you have acquired through your education, work experience, and professional development courses. Keeping in mind the information gathered in the previous section, answer the following questions:
1- In which subjects did you excel during your education?
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2- In which subjects did you perform the least well?
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3- Which ones were your favorites?
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4- Which ones did you like the most?
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5- What technical or specialized knowledge did you acquire through continuing education courses? (e.g., computer skills, foreign languages…)
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6- What knowledge that could prove useful for your education or work have you gained from your reading?
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7- Of the knowledge mentioned in the previous sections, which do you have the best grasp of?
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Step 3 – Your expertise.
This section is very important because employers are looking for people who have the required knowledge, but above all, those who know how to apply it through their skills and expertise.
1- Review the tasks and responsibilities you listed earlier for each position you’ve held. Review your key accomplishments and select the ones you consider most important.
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Review the courses you’ve taken and try to highlight the skills you’ve gained from them. For example, a mechanics course may have taught you how to diagnose a problem.
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2- Your social activities and hobbies may have allowed you to highlight certain skills (teaching, managing, coordinating, communicating, mastering, administering, helping, solving, improving, analyzing, undertaking, persuading, estimating, examining, calculating, advising, deciding, delegating, diagnose, investigate, execute, evaluate, finance, integrate, interpret, innovate, inventory, manipulate, develop, negotiate, guide, share, lead, prepare, plan, reason, gather, report, connect, submit, translate, select, systematize, verify, identify, …)
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Step 4 – Your interpersonal skills.
It’s not easy to describe your strengths and weaknesses. The following exercise will help you take a look at yourself, your relationships with others, and your professional commitment. In each of the following categories of qualities, circle the adjectives that best describe you. If none of the adjectives truly fit, write one that best reflects your personality. (To help you with this task, reread your biography; you may discover, through the examples you provided, aspects of your personality)
Self-perception.
Step 5 – Your Interests.
If you choose activities you don’t enjoy, you won’t make the most of your potential, the skills, and the qualities you’ve just listed. Consider the aspects of your life or work that inspire you and make you happy. Your interests are the cornerstone of what you can achieve.
1) Why did you choose to work in this field?
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2) What would you like to accomplish today in your field?
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3) Without leaving anything out, choose the five activities that interest you the most.
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Step 6 – Your values.
This step focuses on a very important question:
What drives you in life?
To help you answer this question, use the following list to rank the values listed in descending order of importance, with 1 being the most important value to you and 18 the least important.
Summary Table.
You have just completed a series of steps, the results of which have been compiled into a summary table of your personal and professional background. You will need to refer to it frequently during your job search. You will gradually come to understand the value of this kind of reflection, whether it is to clarify your career path, to draft your resume later on, or to prepare for job interviews.
My Summary
