Career Services Office
Career Exploration
Discovering Your Transferable Skills
The first step to any successful job search — whether academic or nonacademic — is careful self-reflection and assessment of values, interests, and skills. By discovering who you are and what you want, you are better able to focus your career exploration and narrow your job search options.
Outcomes of self-assessment:
- Self-assessment provides the material to create persuasive résumés, CVs, and cover letters.
- Students who dedicate time and effort to self-assessment distinguish themselves in résumés, CVs, and cover letters, receive higher ratings from interviewers, and are offered more jobs.
- After receiving jobs, students are also more likely to be satisfied because they have taken the time to find the proper fit.
In graduate school, it is particularly easy to assume you will follow in the direct career path of the professors you work with. Self-assessment will allow you to determine the nature of your academic or nonacademic path.
Self-assessment requires careful analysis of everyday activities and ideas, which can be a challenge since things so familiar are difficult to dissect. Working through the self-assessment process with a friend or group can help, and the rewards of self-assessment are well worth the effort.
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