Owning Up to Your TRUE Strengths and Weaknesses
Posted November 5th, 2012
When looking to further your career, or looking for a job, conventional wisdom advises that you should examine your strengths and weaknesses. All too often, however, we don’t do this.
This is a real mistake because it can actually set us up to fail when we overestimate our capabilities. This is a common error, according to business analyst Eric Sinoway In fact, Sinoway has coined a term for it. He calls it cheating at solitaire, when people convince themselves that they have the skills and abilities they actually don’t, instead of doing an objective, hard-headed analysis of what they can actually do well and what they cannot.
Sinoway says there are really very few areas in which most people excel. It is your job then to work to identify these areas and then build on them in your career, to look for positions where these skills and abilities are needed most. The sooner in your career that you can identify your special set of skills, the more you can take control of how your career plays out.
So, when you are looking at a job – a step up in the career ladder, or just trying to become employed – you need to ask yourself first: Do I have the skills, knowledge and personality to do the job well? And a second questions to ask, if the job is important to you and your sense of career fulfillment: How do my abilities compare to others who are working in such jobs?
In other words, Sinoway says, ask yourself: Can I do it, and can I win against other people who can do it also?
Sinoway says that with the economy as tough as it is today, answering the question about how you compare with others is important. Failing to do it is cheating at solitaire, he says.
Sinoway gives the example of a person he knows, a man with an MBA from a good school who was doing very well at a technology company. The man wanted to move to a new job to further his career.
He had good organizational and administrative skills, as well as being a good project manager. But the job he wanted required excellent technical skills, creativity and the ability to work in a more flexible atmosphere. Sinoway says he advised the person to be careful about taking the job because his skill set didn’t match those needed for the job, and he might be cheating at solitaire if he thought otherwise.
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