To make a good career choice it is essential to have a clear awareness of yourself. This is the crucial foundation to career success and a happy life that many people pay far too little attention to.

Who are you? What do you have to offer others? What do you want from life in return? You need to do whatever you can to assess yourself and take stock of a number of factors.

The key to this step is to be willing to ask yourself questions and keep asking as life  unfolds. As you do this, pay particular attention to anything which hints of your purpose and passion for they are the essence of your internal career compass.

Consider fundamental questions such as your minimum requirements regarding:

• Money (how much a year do you need to survive in the early stages of a career change... and how much do you want down the track)?
  
• Where do you want to work geographically (list your preferences in rank order)?
  
• Your relationships and family (any limitations or important factors to remember)? For example, what will work for your partner and children?
  
• Health (any limitations or factors)? 

Also consider these deeper questions which ultimately can be central to your well-being:

• What do you enjoy most?
  
• What need do you see in society that you could address?
  
• If you knew you were going to die in 10 years time what would you feel best about having done in the mean time?

Strengths Feedback Exercise   

Choose two or three people you respect and who know you fairly well. At least one should be from your office.

Tell them you are gathering feedback to help you evaluate your career direction and set up a meeting. If a face-to-face meeting is difficult, a phone call or email connection with them may be enough.

Ask each of them the same three questions and record their answers

1.  What do you see as my natural strengths?
Person 1 Response:	Person 2 Response:	Person 3 Response:
2.  What do you think are my best skills?
Person 1 Response:	Person 2 Response:	Person 3 Response:
3.  What kind of things could you see me doing well in the future?
Person 1 Response:	Person 2 Response:	Person 3 Response:

Note: Sometimes the responses you get will be very valuable in helping you to see “blind spots” about yourself that you were unaware of. For example, you may not have realized that other people consider you to have an unusual ability to focus on computer work for long hours or to handle difficult people when they get upset.

The one possible downside to this exercise is that sometimes our co-workers and friends can only see us in our past roles and this limits what they can see for us in the future. People who know us can help or hinder us in imagining a new future for ourselves.

Pay attention to their feedback but consider carefully before letting them steal your dreams. They should be helping you uncover new dreams if they aren’t supporting your existing ones.

For further self assessment help see The Complete Career Change Kit on the home page. It contains 9 self assessment exercises:  Your Current Career Influences, Your Emotional State, Your Basic Requirements, Strengths Feedback Check (see above), Life Areas Check, Your Perceived Career Success Constraints, Your Work Values, Your Occupational Interests, and Your Natural Abilities, Learn Skills, and Knowledge Areas... plus free access to online Interests and Personality Profiling.

Online Career Assessment Tools

We also suggest the following career assessment services as an optional addition to the career assessments we use:

1. The Free Online Profile from Future Proof Your Career

The Future Proof Your Career (FPYC) career test helps you find fulfilling work, and creates a personalized career strategy for you that works with the latest employment trends of the knowledge age.

The FPYC career test is no mere pop career quiz. It is designed using the latest psychometric knowledge and all content is approved by a PhD-qualified social scientist.

The career quiz is simple, fun, fast and free! The career test involves answering several pages of simple but carefully-constructed questions about yourself. Upon completion of the career quiz, you are taken directly to your free FPYC Personal Profile.

The career test consists of seven pages of simple questions, where you locate yourself on a one to 10 scale. It takes most people around 10-12 minutes to complete, although some do the career test much quicker and others prefer to take their time.

Your free FPYC Career Test results reveal the following information:
• Your FPYC temperament type
• Your three dominant intelligences
• Your six dominant abilities
• Your knowledge worker status
• Your proficiency in the six key Knowledge Age Skills

Click Here for the free online career profile!

The FPYC career quiz is unique because it is a career test which has been created specifically for the workplace of the knowledge age.

More than any other program, our career test and career quiz provides you with a personalized career strategy that is working with, and not against, the latest employment trends.

These days things are changing so quickly, that unless your strategy is personalized and takes this highly dynamic environment into account, then you are vulnerable to the changes sweeping the job market. How many other career tests and career quizzes take this into account?

2. AnalyzeMyCareer.com

Career-Wise Australia particularly recommends this assessment service if you are considering starting your own business of any kind.

The methodology adopted by AnalyzeMyCareer is unique in that it uses a variety of tests to provide a holistic assessment of your abilities and your suitability for different types of careers.

What are the benefits of this service? Detailed reports are created on all assessments All products carry a 1-month subscription An Online certificate is created on successful completion of tests Careers to which you are suited are identified Potential employers can be impressed with your scores and certificates Scores and reports remain on system for future reference

Anyone considering career change would benefit most from under taking the Expert Opinion Gold package on the top right of the "Analyze My Career" web page.

For full information on Online Assessments just click the link.

If you are considering starting your own business we strongly recommend you undertake the Entrepreneurial Index which is included in the Expert Opinion Gold package.

What is the Entrepreneurial Index?

The EI index has been devised by Dr. Cormac Lankford, Phd in Entrepreneurship, and has helped over 1000 leading entrepreneurs to more fully understand their capabilities.

The EI index analyzes entrepreneurial qualities by building a Career Profile and a Psychological Profile of the candidate. 

Candidates will be presented with a separate report on the results from each component of the index. A total of 10 reports are created to evaluate the candidate.