Chapter 4

Everything from Soup to Nuts

Your Strengths and Limitations

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? Did you dream of being a big-time singer, like Frank Sinatra, Elvis, The Beatles, Cindy Lauper, Tina Turner, George Michael, Michael Jackson, Blake Shelton, Carrie Underwood, or Katie Perry? Or were you more idealistic, seeking to serve humanity as a surgeon, teacher, scientist, firefighter, or a police officer? Perhaps you wanted to use your hands, and you envisioned working in construction, carpentry, plumbing, or landscaping. If you liked to tinker, you probably thought about becoming an auto mechanic or an inventor. Or did your daredevil spirit give you aspirations of being a race car driver, an astronaut, or a pilot?

How does what you are doing now differ from what you wanted to do?

No matter what your career dreams were then or now, you need the right tools—talent, education, skills, aptitude, experience, or a combination thereof—to be successful. How do you know you are even cut out for your dream job? In the Assess step of the ACT Out process, you will learn how to identify your strengths and weaknesses; some are easy to determine while others are not.

To put this in the proper context, consider the analogy of being approached by a carnival barker inviting you to Test Your Strength. In this game, participants use a mallet to strike a board with all their might, forcing an object to fly upward and ring a bell. If you ring the bell, you win a prize for yourself or a loved one.

This game is a simple test of physical strength, but how can you assess more difficult areas, such as your personality, skills, competencies, and work background—or teamwork, decision making, and risk taking—and apply them to a vocation? You are not likely to find games that test these particular strengths or limitations at a carnival.

Fortunately, many career-focused self-assessment tools are available on the Internet for free or at a nominal cost. You can search for keywords, like “career-assessment tools” or “personality test,” or check out the tests listed below.

You need an accurate assessment of yourself because you will be asked one or more of the following questions at some point in every interview with a potential employer: “Describe yourself in terms of your strengths and weaknesses,” “Tell me about yourself and what value you bring to the company,” or “How do you think you compare to our other candidates for this position?”

If you can't answer these types of questions at the drop of a hat, your chances for the position sink rapidly.

Assessment Instruments

Self-Assessment Tests

Campbell™ Interest and Skill Survey^® (CISS^®)

The CISS has been used by career counselors for more than a decade. It was developed by author David Campbell, Ph.D., an expert in career assessment. The test determines your best vocational paths by measuring your interest and confidence within specific skill areas. The test was formerly available to individuals only through licensed counselors, but it is now available online in English and Spanish.

The 320-question survey targets college-bound and college-educated individuals. Your results will be compared to the results of people who are employed in your fields of interest. Your personalized report covers nearly 60 occupations, and helps you interpret the results and plan for your new career.

CareerLeader^® /www.careerleader.com

CareerLeader is a personalized, online self-assessment that identifies your strengths, weaknesses, skills, passions, and values as they relate to potential career paths within business vocations, including nonprofit management. The tool makes concrete recommendations for your business career path.

Personality and Behavioral Assessment Tools

DISC www.discprofile.com

The Dominant Influential Steady Compliant (DISC) assessment is widely used among companies, human resources professionals, and career counselors. It helps you better understand your behavioral style in the workplace, your ideal work environment, and how others might perceive you.

All people possess characteristics of the following four behavioral types but to varying degrees:

Myers-Briggs^® Type Indicator (MBTI) www.myersbriggs.org

The MBTI assessment is one of the most well-known personality assessments. The test, which must be given by a qualified test administrator, provides individuals with a personality profile based on 16 common types that result in a combination of four preferences or dichotomies:

Your test result may indicate that you are an extravert-intuition-thinking-judging (ENTJ), an introvert, sensing, feeling, perceiving (ISFP), or one of 14 other combinations. The description can help you identify characteristics of new roles that might suit you.

Skill-Based Assessment

SkillScan™ www.skillscan.com

SkillScan is an interactive tool that will help you identify your natural strengths as they relate to potential careers. Many universities, career counseling practices, and Fortune 500 corporations use SkillScan to provide a fast, interactive, and engaging process for identifying transferable skills and applying the results to career planning, career change, professional development, and marketing yourself for your job search.

Ask Your Friends

A relatively easy and simple way to do an assessment of yourself is to ask three to five people who know you well (friends, family members, and co-workers) to provide you with three to five words or phrases that best describe your personality, skills, attributes, and abilities. You can email or text them for their words and phrases.

After receiving their words and phrases, eliminate the negative ones and then look for common clusters of traits. You will probably end up with three to five good descriptions of your strengths. Another benefit of doing this is that you will have a crazy good answer if you are asked “How would your friends describe you?”

Make a List!

If you have been in the workforce for a while, you already have a good idea of what your strengths and weaknesses are. If you are a newcomer to the job market, or you want to switch careers, then you will gain some valuable insights by using a career-assessment tool, like the ones that were just described. It is in your best interests to take stock of your strengths and weaknesses and write them down.

Creating a list of strengths is easy, because everyone likes to be viewed favorably. Here are some common adjectives to describe your strengths as they relate to job performance: assertive, decisive, punctual, honest, precise, methodical, determined, goal-oriented, results-oriented, patient, friendly, collaborative, creative, and the list goes on.

During a job interview, the interviewer will without a doubt ask you to name your top three to five strengths. Pull them from the list you have just created. Always match your strengths with noteworthy and measurable results that you obtained in past positions, and how you can apply those same strengths to your new job situation. Make it easy for the interviewer to picture how you are a good fit for the organization.

Use Mnemonics to Recall Your Strengths

A little forethought and creativity will go far in helping you remember the strengths you want to share in an interview. It helps to write your key words and then look for ways to organize them into a mnemonic. For example, an interviewee can use the classic ABC mnemonic to remember what he/she wants to share with an interviewer, which goes like this:

Use the letter A to stand for something like aptitude, which would stand for a list of skills (e.g., Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint^®) that he/she would be offering the organization. B might be for behaviors, which support the aptitudes (e.g., taking advanced classes in these areas). C could stand for creativity, which would highlight how the candidate used his/her aptitudes in new and novel ways in his/her past work experiences.

A candidate also could use a mnemonic called ACT, standing for (attitude, competencies, and task driven). The interviewee would talk about specific attitudes (typically three) like adaptable, accessible, and action-oriented that he/she would bring to the job. For competencies, the candidate would list at least three areas where he/she has achieved a strong level of achievement (e.g., presentation skills, closing the sale, team player). When talking about being task driven, the candidate would mention how he/she organizes the tasks at hand, plans the steps that need to be taken, and executes these steps.

The three Cs (or most any other letter for that matter) work well, too. Compassionate, concrete, and competitive might be three words that a candidate uses to capture his/her top abilities. Using these three words, the interviewee would give detailed examples of where he/she demonstrated these traits. A crazy good response would then relate these traits to the position: diligent, dedicated, and demanding, or helpful, humble, and handy. You get the idea.

HOMES is used as a mnemonic to remember the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior). A candidate could use it to list adjectives that describe him/herself: honest, open, manageable, eager, studious.

One candidate thought about his three siblings to whom he had attached two characteristics or traits. He then thought of each sibling and talked about the traits associated with that sibling. For example, for his oldest sibling, he recalled leadership and role-modeling characteristics and talked about those traits. For the middle sibling, he talked about negotiation skills and extraversion, and for the youngest sibling, he mentioned traits of exuberance and breaking the rules.

Rate the Behavior

Use the Psychotron to rate the following crazy good and crazy bad responses to the interviewer's question: “How did you use a particular strength to achieve a positive result in your last job?”

What's Your Weak Spot?

Admitting your weaknesses can be tricky. All people have them and are reluctant to put themselves in a vulnerable position by confessing their shortcomings. The key is identifying an area that needs improvement and then explaining how you are addressing this area. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best: “Our strengths grow out of our weaknesses.”

What are some of your weaknesses/limitations? Your list might include words like disorganized, perfectionist, lacking in technical expertise, demanding, critical, or whatever your Achilles' heel may be. Interviewers have heard everything under the sun, so your negative quality probably will come as no surprise. All you have to do is spin it in your favor by stating your weakness or limitation, followed by a positive statement.

Rate the Behavior

Using the Psychotron, how would you rate the interview responses below?

A savvy, albeit trickier, approach is to list professional weaknesses that do not even relate to the job you are interviewing for, as shown in these examples:

• “I don't have any artistic ability, but I have always been good with numbers. As your bookkeeper, I am confident that I can keep your spreadsheets balanced to the penny.”
• “My sales skills aren't the best, but my top-notch organizational skills are a good match for being your sales team's office support person.”

Do not list a weakness or limitation that is not closely related to the position you want, such as the following:

• “Even though I am a poor housekeeper, I am well qualified to be your new bank president.” (Not only is this a crazy bad response, it is just plain crazy.)

Human Interaction: Where the Action Is

Human interaction is at the root of every relationship in life, both personal and professional. How well you interact with people is a critical factor in your success and happiness in your job, your love life, and your relationships with family members, neighbors, and even strangers you come into contact with every day.

The word interaction means the combined or reciprocal action of two or more entities or people that have an effect on each other and work together. Like the cyclotron at Michigan State University (MSU), interaction can be weak or strong between elementary particles. The concept of a two-way effect is critical for interaction.

Good human interaction in the workplace promotes a team spirit and keeps employees engaged. Interviewers look for evidence that you can interact well with others and that you will have a positive impact in the workplace. It is not enough to tell the interviewer that you interact well with others. You must provide concrete examples that illustrate your skills and how they produced positive results in your previous positions.

Rate the Behavior

Using the Psychotron, how would you rate the job candidates' behaviors described in the following real-life interviews?

Adults Only

A woman in her mid-30s interviewed for a receptionist position at a mortgage company. She had recently relocated to the area and taken a temporary job as a cashier in an adult bookstore until she could find more appropriate employment. When the interviewer asked about her duties at the store, she responded, “I just moved here and couldn't find anything else. We get our share of weirdoes, but there are some nice, normal customers, too. I don't judge; I just try to help everyone find whatever they're looking for.”

Did the applicant exhibit crazy bad behavior for admitting to working in a sleazy adult bookstore, or was it crazy good behavior because, if she could deal with customers buying sex toys and marching in and out of the peepshow rooms, she could provide good customer service to anyone anywhere?

Real-life result: She got the job troubleshooting with bank managers, figuring out their needs, and determining who to direct them to, and she was promoted to a sales representative at the company.

Make the Call

Sometimes an interviewer will ask a job applicant to explain how he or she would handle a hypothetical job situation that involves customer interaction. The response can provide useful information in making a hiring decision, as shown in the following examples:

The director of human resources for a major airline interviewed applicants for a customer relations position. In this real-life situation, she asked four candidates: “How would you handle a difficult caller?”

Using the Psychotron, which candidate would you hire?

Education: Know Your Own Strengths

Your resume should list your education, including prep schools, private schools, technical schools, junior college, university, post-grad degrees, your class rank, and even the school of hard knocks. If you recently earned your college degree, be prepared to discuss how you selected your major and what you learned in your courses. What skills did you develop in the classroom? Did you work on any special projects that relate to the position? Did you gain any valuable experience?

If your college major differs from the area in which you are now seeking employment, you will need to explain why you are switching career gears and how your major can benefit you in your new field of interest.

You can impress the interviewer by demonstrating ongoing learning through online classes or reading trade publications in your field of interest. An interviewee who has an interest in stock brokerage might tell the interviewer: “I read the Wall Street Journal daily to keep a pulse on the financial world.”

Jobs that Don't Require College Degrees

Did you know that eight of the 10 fastest growing jobs don't require college degrees, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)? Make a list of your job preferences. If any of those jobs do not require a degree, then don't spend money to get a degree just for the sake of earning one.

Do not fret about starting at the bottom, especially if you are new to the job market or you are making a career change. If you do your job well, people will take notice, and you will advance in the organization. In addition, by learning about and working in all phases of a business operation, you set yourself up for business ownership someday. If you start off as a truck driver, you might own the trucking company one day. If you are a hair stylist, you might become a salon owner. If you are hired to clean up construction sites, you could become a foreman or superintendent someday. When you start at a low rung on the ladder, you can work your way to the top in many industries where on-the-job experience supersedes a sheepskin. In fact, two out of every three jobs only require on-the-job training, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Check out this list of 19 top careers, with corresponding average annual incomes, that do not require a college degree, according to CNN.

Skills and Work Experience

On your resume, you should showcase any unusual skills, such fluency in a foreign language, speed reading, sign language, social media expertise, technical aptitude, facilitating webinars, conducting surveys, or public speaking. The interviewer will be keenly interested in a skill that can be applied to the position you are interviewing for, and which can improve efficiency and save time, money, or both, as shown in the following two real-life anecdotes.

Rate the Behavior

Using the Psychotron, how would you rate the job candidate's behavior described in the following real-life interviews?

Upside-Down, Right-Side Up

A man in his 40s applied for a position in flight operations at a major airline. He arrived early for the interview and immediately attracted the attention of the other workers in the office. He was tall, dark, and handsome, and he looked more like a movie star than a prospective airline employee, flashing his gleaming white smile and wearing a well-cut tailored suit.

The human resources director greeted him and ushered him into a small conference room where they took seats across the table from each other. She placed a list of questions in front of her, so the interview could get underway. The applicant glanced over at the page from across the table, read each question aloud, and provided his responses to each one. With his background in military intelligence, he could read the questions upside down faster than the interviewer could read them right-side up.

Did the candidate exhibit crazy bad behavior for taking control of the interview or crazy good behavior because he effectively demonstrated a unique skill that could be an asset to the job he was applying for?

Real-life result: The man was hired, and upper management was pleased with his consistent, stellar performance.

School Daze

A woman in her 30s applied for a position as a receptionist at a real estate company. She had worked in the office at a public high school for many years and simply wanted a change of pace. She had a very pleasant and sweet demeanor, but the interviewer was skeptical about her ability to handle the job. The woman sensed the interviewer's concern and said, “If I can work with unruly high school students who filter in and out of the office all day long and keep them in line, handling the reception desk here will be a piece of cake.”

Did the candidate exhibit crazy bad behavior for making an insinuation, or was it crazy good behavior because she tied her job experience to the position she was applying for?

Real-life result: The woman was hired for the position and rose to the rank of office manager.

Accomplishments

If you are new to the workforce or your resume is light on work experience, you can showcase your community involvement, membership in clubs, associations, and charitable organizations, and any special awards or honors you have received that align with your desired career area.

In today's tough economy, interviewers understand that many people experience lapses in employment; however, they will not be sympathetic if you have been doing nothing with your time off. They can only imagine that you have been sitting on your butt and watching TV, playing video games, or sleeping all day long, instead of using your time to be productive, improve your job skills (e.g., social media, computer, or language skills), or dedicate your time to a worthy cause.

Rate the Behavior

Using the Psychotron, how would you rate the following responses to the interviewer's question: “How have you been spending your time since you were laid off work?”

Areas of Improvement

Even though the goal of the interview is to showcase the positive aspects of your job experience, education, and skills, everyone has one or more weak areas. If you proclaim that you have no areas that need improvement, the interviewer will raise an eyebrow in disbelief or make a mental note of it. It is better to fess up now and look like an honest Abe or Alice.

Could you brush up on your Spanish or French? Hone your organizational skills? Learn how to use your Outlook calendar to schedule appointments? Become savvier about social media? Learn how to create a more dynamic website? Become more proficient in Excel or PowerPoint^®?

Rate the Behavior

Using the Psychotron, how would you rate the following responses to the interviewer's question: “In what area(s) do you need improvement?”

The Best Policy

If you feel like fudging on your resume to pump up your education or your job experience, my advice to you is simple: Don't. Everything really does come out in the wash. If you have exaggerated your proficiency in a particular skill, people will notice when you appear clueless. If you claimed that you are a computer whiz during the interview, co-workers will wonder why you don't know the most basic functions of Microsoft Office. If you claimed to be fluent in Spanish, why would you refuse to converse over the phone with customers and vendors in Mexico City, Costa Rica, or Spain?

If you are one semester short of earning your bachelor's degree, do not think for one minute that one semester does not matter. If you lie on your resume, chances are good that you will be found out, as the following real-life anecdote illustrates, and the ramifications are not worth the gamble.

Rate the Behavior

Using the Psychotron, how would you rate the job candidate's behavior described in the following real-life anecdote?

Fraud Prevention

A woman in her 30s sailed through the interview process and was hired as a sales manager reporting to the sales director at a luxury hotel. The sales director, who was not part of the interviewing and hiring processes, asked if a background check had been conducted before extending the job offer to her. Upon learning that no one had contacted the woman's references, the sales director took it upon herself to make some calls. She discovered that the woman had misrepresented employment dates on her resume.

Did the candidate exhibit crazy good behavior for fudging on her employment information to get the job, or was it just crazy bad, rotten luck because she was found out?

Results: The human resources director and sales director yanked the woman out of an employee orientation session and fired her on the spot for lying on her application.