Self-discovery is a core element of career planning.
Understanding your values, interests, skills, and personality helps you determine the work environment or career field that may be a good fit for you.
We provide assessment tools at no cost to WashU students to help you learn more about yourself.
Express your personal skills, interests and values
Take time to review the prompts below as you continue on this path of self-discovery and explore where your motivators, style, and preferences might take you.
You may want to journal or process your answers with a partner. Remember, there are no right answers, only your answers.
- What have you enjoyed learning most? Least?
- What does success mean to you?
- How do you define work? What examples of work have you had in your life?
- What motivates you to action?
- Who are your key advisors? Why? Are they able to be objective?
- When are you proactive? Reactive?
- What’s one thing you’re good at that you enjoy doing? What’s one that you’re good at but don’t enjoy?
- Think of a time when you were on your game. What were you doing, who were you surrounded by, and what were the conditions that led to that success?
- What transferable skills have you honed already? Which do you want to build?
- What themes do you notice?
- What questions do you want to explore further?
- Career coaching can help you consider next steps and find resources to move forward.
Spend some time thinking about your portfolio of experiences, skills, interests, accomplishments — think about your “unique selling proposition” and then start to leverage that narrative in your communications with prospective employers, contextualizing your story with the work that they do in a compelling, expressive way.