JCU Career Development Program
Self-Understanding 3
Activity Book
ACTIVITY 1 – RECOGNISING YOUR VALUES
Read each box and their associated descriptions, and highlight the descriptions you strongly value. Once you’re done, take a moment to see if there is a particular area which has more asterisks than others, you might notice that you value more things associated with relationships rather than with self or work.
© Queensland University of Technology, 2009
Personal
Creativity: Create new ideas, things, strategies that do not follow a format previously developed by others
Prestige: Becoming well-known and respected
Accomplishment: Having the sense that I have done well
Feedback: Receiving frequent feedback from others about my work.
Moral: Significantly contributing to a set of moral standards which I feel is important Aesthetics: Caring about beauty and harmony
Independence : Being able to do things the way I want to do them Integrity: Working in a way that is consistent with my values Learning: Opportunity to be learning new things
Risk: Doing things that involve some level of risk Honesty: To respectively tell the truth to others. Health: Living a healthy and fit lifestyle.
Relationships
Altruism: Helping people in a direct way, either individually or in groups Contact with People: Have a lot of day-to-day contact with people Work Alone: Working by myself and having little contact with others Team Work: having opportunities to work in a team
Family: spending quality time with my family or partner
Balance: Feeling a balance between family, work and leisure aspects of life
Friendships: Develop close personal relationships with people as a result of my work activities
Community: Living where you can be involved in the community
Work
Power: Being in a position of influence Status: Being regarded as an expert in my field
Advancement: The opportunity to work hard and make rapid career advancement Routine: Have a work routine and job duties/tasks that are similar each day Variety: having tasks and duties that are frequently changing
Excitement: Experience a high degree of excitement and energy in my work Fast Pace: Work in circumstances where there is a high pace of activity Economics: Having the money to lead the lifestyle you choose
Now examine all the ones you have highlighted and select the FOUR which are the MOST important to you and list them below. These 4 Values will most likely affect your future career decisions very strongly.
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Now attempt to name at least FIVE occupations that would meet the criteria of your 4 MOST important values and describe how they will satisfy these values. Is one of these occupations your degree?
Occupation How it will satisfy your most important values
E.g. Social Worker I value altruism and contact. Being a social worker, will allow me to help people in need to connect back with the community and develop appropriate life skills. Also it will give me the opportunity to work directly with a diverse range of people on a day-to-day basis.
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A ACTIVITY 2 – KNOWING YOUR PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES Four
You will have just learned about eight personal attributes that can assist with your career development and contribute to your overall employability. While you may be strong in some attributes, you may never have considered others! So, this Activity will get you to address and consider your strength in each of these attributes.
Loyalty
Describe some examples of situations where you have been loyal to someone and if so, where you have not been loyal and explain why? Take note on how these situations might help you or prevent you from achieving your career goals.
Reliability/Responsibility
Provide some examples of where you have taken responsibility/ been reliable. Detail your ability to recognise what needed to be done and how strongly were you willing to do it. Explain how these examples can be beneficial to your career.
Self Confidence
On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = low self confidence, 10 = high self confidence), indicate how confident you are at:
Public speaking / 10
Working in a team / 10
Problem-solving / 10
Taking risks / 10
Generating new ideas / 10
Leading a group / 10
Achieving set goals / 10
Leadership
Give a few examples of leadership qualities that you think you have already developed or are developing? These may involve sharing information and ideas, showing genuine concern, willing to take risks, showing initiative, making personal sacrifices etc. Describe how you can use these qualities to achieve your chosen profession.
Adaptability/Flexibility
You should have some idea on whether you tend to respond to changes negatively or positively from Activity 2 in your Activity booklet. Now, think of an example where you have positively managed a change(s) in
circumstances or environment. What approach/es did you use to evaluate/solve a problem and/or adapt? What were you thoughts and feelings through this process?
Intellectual Capacity and Style
Consider the following questions and write your response in the space below;
1. Provide some examples that best demonstrate the ways you applied your intellectual capacity and style to solve problems at university.
Persistence
Write down some examples where you have shown persistence in achieving or completing a goal/task. What strategies did you use to motivate you to complete the goal?
Energy and Health
ACTIVITY 3 – YOUR PAST INTERACTION WITH OTHERS
How have you interacted with people before? Answer the following questions below with TWO different examples
1. Give an example of a situation where you were required to interact with others to complete a task/goal. Example 1
Example 2
2. Was the task/goal achieved? Example 1
Example 2
3. Did you have a positive or negative experience? Example 1
4. How did you get on with the other(s)? Were you friendly, bossy, did you argue etc? Example 1
Example 2
5. Did you find it difficult to socialise with the other(s)? If so, why? Example 1
Example 2
6. What strategies/skills did you use to get the job done? Example 1
7. How did the other(s) respond towards you? Were they friendly, sociable, assertive etc? Example 1
Example 2
8. Were there any conflicts? If so, how did you respond? Example 1
Example 2
9. Did you make any friends? If not, why? Example 1
10. What did you learn from this interaction? Example 1
Example 2
11. What would you have done differently? Example 1
Example 2
ACTIVITY 4 - TEAMWORK
Provide an example of a situation where you effectively worked in team to achieve a given goal. What skills did you use to get along with other members? And how could this be valuable information to a potential
employer? Task
Skills used to get along with others
How could this be valuable information?
ACTIVITY 5 – YOUR SUPPORT NETWORKS
On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being Not at all and 10 being All the time), indicate the extent you rely on each group for support on the bar graph below. To edit the data, double click on the bar graph, select “View” from the toolbar and then click “Datasheet.” An Excel pop-up will appear where you can edit the data in the “Groups you rely on” column according to what is appropriate for you.
For each situation, write down the names of the people you would turn to for support.
Have a problem
Want to learn new things
Feeling upset
Feeling anxious
Don’t want to be judged
Want to have fun
Want good advice
Needs someone to just listen
Want to explore new ideas
