Active Placement

Self Assessment

Date

© 2019 Lee Hecht Harrison. All rights reserved.

LHH_ActivePlacementWorkshop_PG_2019

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Date:
Self-Assessment
When considering career options, it’s essential to reflect on who you are and what’s
important to you, label your competencies, personal characteristics, skills, and
achievements, consider your interests and values, and review your overall experience.

Your first step to creating a professional objective that reflects who you are is to conduct
a self-assessment to ensure that the direction you choose is a good fit for you and that
you’re seen as capable and qualified. Your work history and accomplishments are also
an excellent focus for consideration.

The results of this self-assessment will also help you see more clearly what career
alternatives and options are possible for you – using different combinations of your
strengths. The exercises are designed to assist you in developing a broader
professional objective, career vision and plan.

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Assessing Your Personal Characteristics
Each of us possesses certain personal characteristics – or traits that make us unique and
enhance our ability to perform different tasks successfully. To help determine your
personal characteristics, follow the three steps in this exercise. When you are finished,
you may wish to confirm your personal assessment with a friend.

1. Review the list below and select the six traits that describe you best. Check the box
next to each. Be sure that there is clear evidence of your accomplishments for the
traits you check.
2. Of these six that you checked, circle the three that represent your most prominent
traits.
3. Now look for any traits that an interviewer might consider a weakness. Put an ‘X’ next
to those traits.

☐ Accurate ☐ Dependable ☐ Intelligent ☐ Productive

☐ Adventurous ☐ Efficient ☐ Intuitive ☐ Rational
☐ Assertive ☐ Emotional ☐ Kind ☐ Responsible
☐ Challenging ☐ Entertaining ☐ Leader ☐ Responsive
☐ Civic-minded ☐ Enthusiastic ☐ Loyal ☐ Self-controlled
☐ Committed ☐ Expressive ☐ Original ☐ Self-starter
☐ Communicate well ☐ Good attitude ☐ People-oriented ☐ Sense of humour
☐ Compassionate ☐ Hard worker ☐ Perfectionist ☐ Sensitive
☐ Confident ☐ High standards ☐ Personable ☐ Sociable
☐ Creative ☐ Imaginative ☐ Persuasive ☐ Stable
☐ Curious ☐ Independent ☐ Physically fit ☐ Tolerant
☐ Dedicated ☐ Inquisitive ☐ Practical ☐ Trustworthy

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Assessing Your Interests
The choices we make about work – no matter what field – are influenced by our interests.
This exercise will help you assess your interests: the things you like and do not like to do.

Your interests are another important part of career decision making. One way to identify
your interests is to think back on your career and determine what you liked and disliked
about each of your jobs, starting with your most recent. Summarise your likes and dislikes
below.

Likes Dislikes
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Assessing Your Personal Values
Taking the time and effort to discover what is valuable to you in life enables you to
recognise internal guideposts that will help you make career decisions. Making value
choices is not that easy, and, at times, values conflict.

Number these values in order of importance with 1 being most important and 10 being
least important. No ties allowed. If you add another value in the “other” category – make
11 the least important.

_____ Independence and Autonomy: _____ Service: Contributing to the

Doing things on your own; not having welfare of others; dedicating yourself to
too many rules and restrictions placed a worthwhile cause.
on you.
_____ Friendship: Being liked by
_____ Power: Controlling the situation others; maintaining important
around you in order to make things relationships and having
happen in organisations. companionship.

_____ Leadership/Management: _____ Security: Reducing worries

Coordinating the work of others and about future financial welfare; preferring
taking responsibility for the overall stability and predictability.
results.
_____ Challenge: Desiring to take on
_____ Technical Expertise: Being and win the “tough ones” in any field of
strong in specific skill areas, such as endeavour.
finance, marketing, engineering, or
human resources. _____ Wealth: Accumulating a large
amount of money – more than average
_____ Lifestyle: Being holistic about and much more than necessities
unifying all of the various parts of your require.
life, such as career, family and interests.
_____ Other(s):

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Know Yourself and Your Value
Understanding how you add value is a core component of your Professional Brand.
Identifying your Skills includes identifying:

The things you can do: Actions, the things you know: Experiences, and the Roles you
can play – the hats you wear.

1. What would your ideal work and work environment be?

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2. What things can you do?

Employers want to know the specific actions you can take, such as “organise an effective
presentation” or “develop a project timeline.”
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3. What things do you know?

Jobs require knowledge as well as skills. Employers want to know if you know the essentials
for the job.
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4. What roles can you play?

Employers want to know how you can combine skills, knowledge and personal characteristics to fulfill
particular workplace roles.
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Know Your Value
Adding value = showing you make a difference. How? By showing results, impact,
solutions, improvements, and change. Answer the following question to highlight your
value:

What value do you bring to your next role?

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Identifying Accomplishments
This exercise is designed to help you identify your accomplishments at work. Review the
questions and place a check next to those that apply to you. Beside each item you check,
specify a key word that will remind you of the accomplishment. Each accomplishment is
an indicator of one or more skills in action. Later you will name these skills. Remember,
you will also use accomplishments to communicate your achievements in your résumé
and when interviewing.**

Accomplishments Key Word

• Did you identify a problem and solve it? What were the results?
• Did you introduce a new system or procedure that made work easier or
more accurate?
• Did you save the company money or time? How much? What positive
impact did the savings have on the company?
• Did your efforts increase the company’s profit line? By how much?
• Did you increase productivity or reduce downtime? By how much?
• How did the savings affect the bottom line?
• Did you effectively manage systems or people? What were the results
of your efforts?
• Did you initiate a sales or incentive program that worked? What were
the results in dollars and cents? On company image? On morale?
• Did you participate in decision making or planning? What contributions
did you make to the team? What were the results of your efforts?
• Did you write any major reports, programs, publications, promotions, or
newsletters? What was the intended audience? What was the
distribution or readership?
• Did you improve the efficiency of people or operations? What were the
savings?
• Were you responsible for reducing staff or trimming an operation?
• How were you able to do this efficiently?
• Were you involved in a start-up or shutdown? What were the challenges
you faced?
• Did you automate or create systems or procedures? How many people
did you train? How much money was involved in the automation?
• Were you a liaison between departments? How were you able to make
things run more efficiently?
• Did you produce reports or data that enabled management to make
more informed decisions?

Omplishments99 Key Word

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SOAR Stories

S SITUATION What was the situation? Your objective?

O What obstacle did you need to overcome or

STORY

OBSTACLE/PROBLEM problem to solve?

STATEMENT

A ACTION What did you do? What skill did you use?

R
How did it benefit the company? Met objective?
RESULT Solved problem? What if you hadn’t taken that
action—what was prevented? Quantify when
possible.

SOAR Stories
Using the questions below as a guide, create a SOAR story.
Create a SOAR story for each of your accomplishments so that you can then consider your
SOAR Statements (Accomplishment Statements) using the “A” and “R” of your SOAR Stories.

Story #1 ________________________________________________________________________________
Situation – What was the situation? Your objective?
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Obstacle/Problem – What obstacle did you need to overcome or problem to solve?

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Action – What did you do? What skill did you use?
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Result – How did it benefit the company? Met objective? Solved problem? What if you
hadn’t taken that action—what was prevented? Quantify when possible.
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Story #2 ________________________________________________________________________________
Situation – What was the situation? Your objective?
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Obstacle/Problem – What obstacle did you need to overcome or problem to solve?

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Action – What did you do? What skill did you use?
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Result – How did it benefit the company? Met objective? Solved problem? What if you
hadn’t taken that action—what was prevented? Quantify when possible.
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Story #3 ________________________________________________________________________________
Situation – What was the situation? Your objective?
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Obstacle/Problem – What obstacle did you need to overcome or problem to solve?

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Action – What did you do? What skill did you use?
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Result – How did it benefit the company? Met objective? Solved problem? What if you
hadn’t taken that action—what was prevented? Quantify when possible.
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Story #4 ________________________________________________________________________________

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Situation – What was the situation? Your objective?
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Obstacle/Problem – What obstacle did you need to overcome or problem to solve?

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Action – What did you do? What skill did you use?
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Result – How did it benefit the company? Met objective? Solved problem? What if you
hadn’t taken that action—what was prevented? Quantify when possible.
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Story #5 ________________________________________________________________________________
Situation – What was the situation? Your objective?
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Obstacle/Problem – What obstacle did you need to overcome or problem to solve?

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Action – What did you do? What skill did you use?
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Result – How did it benefit the company? Met objective? Solved problem? What if you
hadn’t taken that action—what was prevented? Quantify when possible.
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SOAR (Accomplishment) Statements
Using SOAR Stories, you will craft your Resume and LinkedIn® Accomplishment
Statements.
• Create succinct sentences that commence with an Action word (the skill) outlining
the Actions and Results you delivered or achieved
• Remember these statements will be invaluable in your Resume as they present
the value that you bring to your next role

Accomplishment Statements
• Designed and implemented standard Financial Model that assured data integrity and
accessibility, eliminated analytical/data inconsistencies and reduced workload by two
days.

• Provided on-going support for modification and de-bugging of manufacturing and

material handler automation equipment, resulting in a major reduction in down time.

• Coordinated, resolved, and responded to 300-500 consumer letters in a 5-day

turnaround, measurably improving customer satisfaction.

• Researched and determined status of errors and created system to help track future
unclaimed obligations, which resulted in initial savings of $184,000 and $20,000
annually.

• Streamlined departmental operations on a continuing basis through improved

equipment reliability and operator development, which reduced cycle time by 20%.

• Introduced two new products that resulted in $400,000 in additional sales.

• Analysed factory returns, conferred with work personnel to determine sources of

problems, implemented solutions in priority order, resulting in 35% reduction in one
month.

• Prepared and presented training on computer system for 28 people, saving

company $51,000 annually.

• Implemented policy and procedure for auditing reports, increasing accuracy rate
from 65% to 90%.

• Restructured 450 construction projects to ensure completion on time and within

budgetary limitations, reducing overall cost of project by more than $200,000.

• Reduced complaint response time from 21 days to 7.

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Accomplishments start with an action word – a verb

Action Verbs

accomplished consolidated explained maintained remodeled

achieved contained extracted managed repaired
acted contracted fabricated marketed represented
adapted contributed facilitated mediated researched
addressed controlled familiarised moderated restored
administered coordinated fashioned monitored restructured
advanced corresponded focused motivated retrieved
advised counseled forecast negotiated revitalised
allocated created formulated operated saved
analysed critiqued founded organised scheduled
appraised cut generated originated schooled
approved decreased guided overhauled screened
arranged delegated headed up oversaw set
assembled demonstrated identified performed shaped
assigned designed illustrated persuaded Solidified
attained devised improved prepared Specified
audited diagnosed increased presented stimulated
authored directed indoctrinated prioritised streamlined
automated dispatched influenced processed strengthened
balanced distinguished informed produced summarized
budgeted diversified initiated programmed supervised
built drafted innovated projected surveyed
calculated edited inspected promoted systemized
catalogued educated installed provided tabulated
chaired eliminated instigated publicised taught
clarified enabled instituted published trained
classified encouraged instructed purchased translated
coached engineered integrated recommended traveled
collected enlisted interpreted reconciled trimmed
compiled established interviewed recorded upgraded
completed evaluated introduced recruited validated
composed examined invented reduced worked
computed executed launched referred wrote
conceptualised expanded lectured regulated
conducted expedited led rehabilitated

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Notes
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About Us
Lee Hecht Harrison helps companies simplify the
complexity associated with transforming their leadership
and workforce so they can accelerate results, with less risk.
We do this by helping their employees navigate change,
become better leaders, develop better careers, and
transition into new jobs.
As the world’s leading integrated Talent Development and
Transition company, we have the local expertise, global
infrastructure, and industry leading technology required to
simplify the complexity associated with executing critical
talent and workforce initiatives, reducing brand and
operational risk. Teams in more than 60 countries around
the world leverage our proven programs and global
experience to deliver tailored solutions to clients that align
talent with the needs of their business.