Personal SWOT: uncover your potential!

SWOT in business

To assess themselves and their competitors, and to formulate their strategies, companies use a SWOT – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats – analysis. But this exercise isn’t just for businesses.

SWOT in job search

A personal SWOT analysis can do the same for you if you are in pursuit of your career goals or in job search. It helps you to determine how well you fit in a particular job. Because it provides insights based on:

  • your personality strengths and weaknesses,
  • what challenges you see ahead of you,
  • and what opportunities are present around you now and in the future.

Try your personal SWOT analysis to help you determine how well you fit in a particular job. Then, to prepare both your application and the job interview.

Personal SWOT: how to

To conduct the analysis, ask yourself questions about each of the four examined areas (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats). Some possible examples of questions are listed in the image below. Remember, be honest and objective. In addition, try to see yourself from your standpoint and from that of your colleagues, clients, managers, suppliers.

Tips:

  1. Once you have taken the time to fill out each quadrant of your personal SWOT matrix, don’t let the weaknesses and threats get you down. Turn these negatives into positives. I.e. convert your weaknesses into strengths, and the threats into opportunities. This is your opportunity to grow your skill set and develop yourself to better match your career objective. For example, if you are very introverted and introspective, the sales position you target – in which you have to interact with many new and different people – may not suit you very well. But if you can work toward a post sales position, that weakness turns into a strength and could allow you to excel. And this is because you’ll be working with existing and known clients, in a more comfortable environment.
  2. To fill out the strengths and weaknesses quadrants of  your SWOT analysis, consider doing a mini survey among your acquaintances and professional network. Check out the 3 simple questions to ask them.

It’s amazing how candidates’ performance improves in a job interview. This is thanks to a structured and clear strategy based on SWOT analysis!