Reflection Skills

What

Self-Awareness is having a clear perception of your personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions. Self-awareness allows you to understand other people, how they perceive you, your attitude, and your responses to them in the moment. It can be beneficial for you to reflect and explore who you are, so you can apply this knowledge to your job search and when you are applying for jobs via your CV, applications and at interview.  

Aspects of self-awareness:  

• Emotional intelligence 

• Skills  

• Values and beliefs 

• Self-perception of your image / identity 

• Aspirations 

• Motivations 

• Influences 

• Career aspirations  

How

There are various methods to help you evaluate your self-awareness.

• Talk to others – ask colleagues, friends, family, course mates, lecturers about what they think of you. What they think your strengths and weaknesses are, how you learn best, what skills you have etc. 
• Take self-assessments – we have plenty of links on the careers website where you can take personality quizzes online to evaluate your preferences, motivations, values and areas of strengths and weaknesses. 
• Reflection – reflect on past opportunities, projects you worked on, extra-curricular roles and teams you worked in.

Think about yourself :

• Where did you shine? 
• What did you learn? 
• What worked? What did not? 
• What did you enjoy or dislike? 
• When did you feel energised or drained? 

Why

Benefits of having self-awareness:

• Generating job ideas ​ 

• Deciding what job you want​ 

• Take control ​ 

• Career happiness ​ 

• Application skills (written and verbal)​ 

• Confidence ​ 

• Determination and motivation.