How to conduct a career SWOT analysis
Grab my FREE SWOT Analysis Guide:
http://www.yourinterviewcoach.co.uk/
Part One of the "Live" Interview Coaching Series.
First "live" Interview Coaching Session
SWOT Lesson Plan
Live Interview Coaching sessions are planned for 20 to 30 minutes and there’ll be an opportunity to ask questions either throughout the session or at the end.
If you have any questions please send me an email [email protected]
CVs are much more than your employment history – your CV is your personal brand and needs to match your personality and style at work.
This is a good start however, you’ll need to do some research to check whether this actually matches with what employers WANT and what they OFFER.
What do you WANT from a job or career?
Salary / benefits / holidays / rewards / pension
Hours and patterns of work
Shifts / Nights
Location / commute time
Type of contract – Permanent, fixed term contract, zero hours, temporary etc.
Training / development / career progression or promotional opportunities / career path
Work out doors
Work in an office
Work with people, adults or children, numbers and data, animals, trees or all the above!
Sociable / team work preferred
Responsibility / autonomy / decision making role
Job tasks and duties – what do you like doing, administration, dealing with customers, typing, driving?
What sectors or industries are you most interested
What are your STRENGTHS – What you offer an employer?
Skills, experience and knowledge
Hard (technical) and Soft (behavioural) skills
Technical competency and ability - accounting skills, systems or software skills, typing, writing reports etc
Behavioural competencies - communication skills, interpersonal skills, planning and organising skills, time management, customer service. We’ll talk in much more detail and spend the whole session on behavioural competencies.
Factor in other personality traits and characteristics that make you unique – ambitious, driven, goal or target orientated, explain your work ethic, work style – professional, structured, dynamic, energetic extravert or introvert etc.
Look at your OFFERs list and expand on the key skills and decide what level of competence – basic knowledge, intermediate, advanced – be really honest here. Employers take this information very seriously and you may even be tested at interview to demonstrate you have this level of capability.
What are your WEAKNESSES or developments?
Most good recruiters and HR managers don’t like the term weakness – it implies it’s something negative in the first place and it might simply be that you haven’t had the opportunity to demonstrate this skill or had any need in the past to increase your knowledge in this area or topic.
So with that in mind turn the word weakness to development – it’s just an opportunity to either improve an existing skill or learn something new – and this is great at interview to explain you’re looking forward to learning something new.
Qualifications
Training
Knowledge gaps relating to your sector / industry
Systems or computer skills gaps
Experience you may be lacking
Behavioural competencies – improve relationship building skills, develop networking skills,
How are you measuring your success? Think about previous appraisals or feedback sessions with managers or colleagues.
You need to tackle the weaknesses very differently when you are applying for a specific job – because you don’t want to talk yourself into a rejection by inadvertently mentioning one of the key / essential criteria.
OPPORTUNITIES
This is where you start your research and see if what you want and offer (Strengths) match with the opportunities available – salary, location, hours and your skills, experiences and knowledge etc.
THREATS
Again this will form part of your research – what’s happening in your sector or industry? What regulation or legislation changes could potentially affect this sector?
Thank you for watching my video - if you would like to join us Live on Facebook please visit our page / yourinterviewcoach