Career and Personal Assessment -- - by E. Ann Scott (WCAS69, GSESP71)
One of the most critical tasks to undertake before beginning an executive job search is assessing both your key strengths and your value to targeted employers. A true career assessment includes:
- the value you can add to a potential employer (your skills)
- your values (ethics, autonomy, management style) and
- the corporate culture/personal chemistry match (how your personal style fits with the “personality” of a potential employer.)
If you are a perceptive person who can honestly evaluate your own strengths and weaknesses, you can create an assessment of your own skills and leadership style. However, performing the self-assessment is challenging since, even though you know your own experience, skills, and accomplishments, it is difficult to compare and contrast yourself with others with similar backgrounds. If you consult an experienced person to complete this assessment, you may discover key strengths and weaknesses which you wouldn’t have otherwise ascertained.
During twenty-five years as an executive search consultant (a headhunter), I was retained to find key executives for some of the largest companies in the nation. In these searches, it was important to deliver an assessment of each candidate’s professional and personal strengths to match the requirements of the executive opening as well as the candidate’s personal chemistry with the corporate culture of the client.
Several years ago, after having been assigned to several individual job-seekers as a consultant, I was to package, position, and for some, even present them in their search for their next corporate position. I became an executive agent.
First, I conduct a face-to-face interview. During these interviews, candidates reveal their passion and enthusiasm while discussing their major accomplishments as well as their leadership style. Then, I complete an assessment to identify each executive’s current business skills and assets along with their personal strengths and style of management, and their “major selling points” as a potential candidate.
Below are three stories of clients I assisted in career and personal assessment:
Client One worked for a large corporation whose products were being replaced by newer technology. She consulted me to help her market herself to related companies in more vibrant industries. I identified her major strengths which would easily transfer to a company whose business was expanding. Besides repositioning her skills, another challenge was her lack of time. She was working inordinate hours due to the downsizing of her corporation (i.e. doing the same amount of work with fewer employees.)
Result: She is now working for a company in the healthcare field and has recently received a promotion.
Client Two was a general manager in his sixties whose experience was in another declining industry. Our challenge was to reposition his strengths to add value to a new or related industry. Although his experience was general management, he became the most animated when talking about his accomplishments successfully developing and promoting major events. He had created many ingenious major events at minimal cost as his organization did not have the budget to hire outside professionals.
Result: He has repositioned himself as a promotions consultant in his industry, closely related industries, governmental, nonprofit, and promotional agencies.
Client Three was a very successful high tech executive. He started a consulting business and was going to solicit business from Fortune 500 technology companies. His goal was to identify his major strengths to use in his sales pitch.
Result: His business in IT is thriving.
From my experience, an accurate career and personal assessment is the critical first step in your job search. Without it, you will find yourself one of the hundreds of candidates who are just part of “the pack”. With it, you will be a stand out to the clients who can profit from your key strengths.
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E. Ann Scott (WCAS69, GSESP71) graduated from Northwestern primed for a career as a math teacher, but after a few years in a high school classroom, she realized that the job wasn’t right for her. Drawn to the faster-paced corporate world, she took up headhunting until, by chance, she accepted a few individual consulting clients, thus unintentionally launching her career as an executive agent. Her 25-year career as a headhunter helped her develop a keen sense of what companies seek in their potential employees. “With my help and direction,” she says, “clients learn to present themselves as the best match for the company.” In the end, emphasizes Scott, “I help shorten the job search.”
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Posted October 21, 2009.
