Post by Sydney Pickell ’24

Before doing the Clifton Strengths Assessment, I thought it would not be very useful in my future career search or give me any new information about myself that I did not already know. Having done a lot of strengths tests and personality quizzes in the past, I expected it to mirror the results and not give me any new and relevant insights. However, although the assessment did give me similar results to previous quizzes, I think it framed them in a unique light, and the assessment results themselves, paired with the additional resources found after taking the test, allowed me to gain a lot of perspective on what I want to be doing and what I personally value in a career.

With the assessment, you are able to receive your top five strengths with a description of each, ranked by the order you value and show each theme. Scrolling down on the page, there is an Insight Guide, a Signature Themes Report that gives more details on your personalized themes and a Strengths Insights and Action-Planning Guide specifically tailored towards you. The latter is where I found the most beneficial information, and I really enjoyed how it was broken down by each of my top five themes. With the questions written with each theme, as well as the end of the section, it almost forces you to reflect on what is important to you and highlights ideas for action, as well as how you can use them in daily and professional life. I think this specific tool really separates the Clifton assessment from other career or strengths assessments. Not only does this resource give you insights about you, but it helps to walk you through possible avenues of putting them to use and allows for a lot of reflection. Another part of the guide I really enjoyed was the quotes from real people, broken down by what each of your five personal themes sounds like. I really was able to figure out what themes were most important to me and how they could manifest in my professional career further in my future. It really made me realize how I could connect each insight to what I want to pursue and gave me a look into what I want to focus on achieving and how to get there.

Even though I thought this was just going to be another run of the mill personality assessment, I now can confidently say that most people, if not all, will learn something new or be able to reflect and gain perspective in a new way by taking this assessment. I encourage students of any age to take this assessment, whether they know what they want to major in, what fields they want to work in or if they do not know anything about their future plans. Knowing more about yourself and being able to walk through it in the way this resource does has been extremely helpful to me. Although I was apprehensive to take this assessment in the beginning, I am so glad I was able to gain the insights and perspectives put forth by this tool, and will be planning on keeping them in my mind through my future career exploration.

**If you are interested in the Strengths assessment, please make an appointment with a Career Coach in Handshake.