The Importance of Self-Assessment

Understanding yourself is a critical aspect of career and educational exploration and planning. The more you know about your career-related interests, values, skills, personality type and preferences, the better equipped you will be to identify the career fields, major areas of study and training programs, and education pathways that are compatible with your personal attributes. The FOCUS 2 system will help you develop an accurate assessment of your personal qualities:

• Your Work Interests are a reflection of the kinds of work-related activities and tasks you most enjoy doing.
• Your Personality Type is a description of how you react to certain situations and people and how you make decisions, organize information and go about solving problems.
• Your Values are a description of what is most important to you in your life. For example, you might value earning a lot of money, helping other people, being creative and artistic, having a secure and steady job, etc.
• Your Skills are a reflection of your talents and the types of things you learn easily and perform well.
• Your Leisure Time Interests are a reflection of the kinds of leisure activities you most enjoy doing.

A snapshot of the Main Menu of FOCUS 2 appears below. The layout of the FOCUS 2 Main Menu mirrors the steps of the career planning process. Most students start at the top of the Main Menu and then work down through the FOCUS 2 tools. Click the image to view the full pdf.

FOCUS 2 will guide you through an interactive process enabling you to:

• Assess your career planning readiness, work interests, values, skills, personality type and leisure time interests.
• Broaden your career options and discover occupations matching your personal preferences and attributes.
• Decide which career fields, majors and training programs are best for you.
• Plan the career and educational pathway that will support your personal needs and goals.

To log in to the FOCUS 2 Assessment, visit the Getting Started with FOCUS 2 page.