Why self-knowledge is important
To manage your career effectively, you need to know yourself well. When you are self-aware, you can ask for the opportunities, supports, and rewards you need.
You will deliver your best effort for your company when you know:
Your core interests
Your values
Your strongest skills
Understanding your interests, values, and skills allows you to determine:
Which job activities give you the most meaning
What things motivate you most
What kinds of environments you prefer to work in
What abilities you possess and which you need to develop
It’s important to stop and periodically assess your career priorities. It’s easy to mistake a job you do well for one that satisfies you. If you’re not engaged, you may eventually become burned out.
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Download ToolDiscover core interests
When you make career decisions, look to satisfy your core interests first.
Why? Research shows that a strong "interests match" with a job generates the greatest likelihood of satisfaction. You can usually learn needed skills; it’s harder to build a sense of connection to work that doesn’t interest you. A job that addresses your deep-seated interests will keep you engaged and resilient.
What are core interests? Core interests reflect how you engage with the world. For instance, you may have a core interest in quantitative analysis, and spend your free time tracking the statistics of all your favorite teams. You may love to influence people through language and ideas—and run a personal blog.
Researchers have identified eight common core interests. You may be motivated by more than one of these. *
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Your core interests include…
If you …
Technology application
Like to figure out how technology can be used to make life better. You are curious about how things work.
Quantitative analysis
See data and numbers as the best, and sometimes only, way to figure out business solutions.
Conceptual thinking
Enjoy developing theories and thinking and debating abstract ideas.
Creative production
Love to turn original ideas into something tangible. You flourish in seeing and acting on possibilities.
Counseling and mentoring
Find nothing more enjoyable than teaching and helping others.
Managing people and relationships
Thrive on dealing with people and enabling them to produce results.
Enterprise control
Prefer to be the “one in charge” and the decision maker. You like to be the final authority in the situation.
Influence through language and ideas
Flourish in communication—whether written or spoken. You love to express ideas and to persuade others.
A Great Job Fit
ABOUTBIOTRANSCRIPTWhen I started my career out, I was working for a company that focused on policy procedure and compliance. I worked there for about four years. And during that four years, I remember thinking, “This can't be what my career is,” because it was just the cultural fit for me wasn't there. It was very corporate, and you had to wear suits every day. And it just wasn't a fit. So I worked there for four years and finally got up the nerve to leave, and moved on to a coffee company, a coffee roaster.
And it was a completely different environment. It was casual. People were more relaxed there. There was more creative energy, which is something that I really needed at the time. And I started doing social media marketing there for that company. Which, with social media marketing, it's sometimes really hard to show the value in that particular marketing tactic. Because it's not always black and white.
But when I was working there, I was able to create some corporate accounts for the company through social media. And I was able to generate more coffeehouse sales for the company-owned coffeehouse. But unfortunately, my boss didn't really understand social media marketing. And he didn't understand the value that those things brought to the table. And I wasn't very good at explaining that to him.
So I moved on from that job and I came to where I am now, Manta.com, which is a small-business network. And when I completed the interview there, I discovered that the things that I had learned in my previous role were that I really needed to feel comfortable with what I bring to the table. And also needed to be able to sell that to someone else. And so in the interview I was very confident. I was able to state exactly the tools that I bring to the table, the experiences that I have that make me valuable. And I was fortunate enough to get the job.
And the culture there is completely different. It's creative, it's fun, it's flexible, it's a new thing every day. It's very interesting to work at Manta.
And I think really the lesson that I learned overall is that not only do I need to be able to sell myself and sell what I bring to the table, but it's also about finding the right cultural fit when it comes to the workplace. It can take some trial and error, but it's also up to you to figure out what works for you and then to state exactly what you bring to that environment.
