What do you know about yourself? As your career unfolds you will have experience to draw from and indeed learn from. However, when you’re at the beginning of your working life it may not be so obvious. What are your key competencies and personal attributes? What motivates you? These are all common questions you will be asked.

Self awareness will give you a head start before your job search begins, let alone at interview stage, by providing key drivers/indicators as to the type of work and environment that will best suit you. This will maximise your potential. At interview stage an understanding of yourself (behavioural characteristics) will give you something relevant to talk about other than what limited work experience you have already gained. In most cases, especially when recruiting graduates, it will be your key competencies and personal attributes that will be of most importance to potential employers. These will be assessed and measured against other candidates to identify where you will add value to the team/organisation.

Self awareness will also stand you in good stead once you have embarked on your career because knowing your strengths and limitations will give you insight into how they may affect your performance at work. It is worth considering the positives and negatives of the behaviours you exhibit, especially looking at it through your peers and manager's eyes. Also, gaining an understanding of yourself will give you clearer insight into others. It will become easier to assess their strengths and their more obvious limitations.

So, let's look at what you know about yourself already.

Key competencies are those abilities you possess to do something well or effectively and that are, in this context, key to the job you are applying for. Specialist skills tend to be task orientated and can be learnt, ie, how to file a report or use a piece of equipment/technology. Underpinning the content execution of these tasks is a range of other skills and abilities, sometimes referred to as generic skills, ie, communication skills, team skills, organisational skills, negotiation skills, leadership skills, and so on. It is a result of these specialist and generic skills that results in successful performance.

You will already know what your specialist and technical skills are but what are your generic skills? Start by looking for evidence of these skills. Let's take team skills as an example – think about any team scenarios you have been in. Do you play team sports or are you a member of a club? Consider your role and how that contributes towards the success of the team. Secondly, ask for feedback from a cross section of people that know you, 'What am I good at and what makes you say that?' It is always also worth asking the reverse, 'What am I not so good at?' Remember you're building your self awareness and the opinion of others will prove valuable because our weaknesses are often our blind spots.

Personal attributes are the qualities or features that belong to/represent you. These can include things like being enthusiastic, driven, dependable, independent, competitive, precise etc. What are your personal attributes? Again, look for evidence in your answers and ask for feedback from others, 'What do you perceive to be my personal qualities?' Making a list of your personal attributes will assist you in building your self awareness portfolio. It is also useful to rank the list in order of your most prominent attributes. You can refer to the list when you are applying for new jobs and realign the list in the order that you perceive to be most relevant/advantageous to the role you are applying.

Motivation is what inspires/or encourages you to take a course of action. What motivates you? Take some time to think about past experiences and a time when you have felt really motivated towards/or to do something. What was it that was inspiring you? We all have different motivators and what motivates one may be the next persons fear. It is worth thinking about the flip side of this yourself, 'What is your basic fear?' This isn’t necessarily something you would share with others but it is building your self awareness. It will provide insight in to your limitations and in turn, and over time, you will learn to compensate. To give you a very general example, someone who is motivated by people will also likely be motivated by public praise and recognition, however their fear will be rejection.

You should now have a greater self awareness and understanding of your behavioural characteristics. It is your behavioural characteristics that will impact on the kind of leader and/or manager you are/or will become. They identify working strengths and limitations and where you are likely to be of most value within a team or organisation. We can all modify our own behaviour but the extent will depend on how sustainable it is over time and how happy we are in our work. We will all work best when we are able to demonstrate our natural characteristics and this is why it is important to start to identify with them from the onset of your career.

A top tip is to keep a journal noting things that you continue to learn about yourself include personal accomplishments (however small), comments and feedback you have from others. If you are listening out for them you are much more likely to hear them. You will find that you have hidden talents that you have not yet recognised in yourself or are waiting to be discovered. 

The Author:
Lesley O'Keeffe is a career coach, she can be contacted at lesley@skillframe.co.uk
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