What are Self-Assessments?
Self-Assessments are a great tool early in the career development process that can assist you with educational planning (choosing/changing your major), exploring career options, career decision-making, and/or career shifts. It’s important to remember that self-assessments are just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to figuring out your major and career options but often the easiest place to simply start.
The Career Connections Center offers a variety of self-assessments to UF students that are either free or have a minimal cost. On this page you will be able to learn more about the self-assessments available to you as a UF student and additional resources available to you.
When developing your Career Action Plan mindsets, self-assessments are a great tool to Learn About Yourself And Career Options.
Self-Assessments that Can Help You Learn About Yourself and Career Options
What is CHOMP?
CHOMP stands for Career Help or Major Planning. The C3’s online and interactive tool, CHOMP powered by Focus2, offers a variety of self-assessments that will evaluate your areas of work interests, values, personality, skills, and leisure skills to help you make decisions about your future education plans and career goals during your time at the University of Florida.
You are also able to explore majors and occupations related to these different dimensions of self and how different majors at UF may connect to careers. CHOMP is free for UF students and alumni.
- My Career Planning Involvement
- My Academic Strengths
- Am I Career Ready?
When Should I Use CHOMP?
CHOMP is a great tool to use:
- When you are unsure of a major to choose or when you feel your current major is not the best fit
- When you are evaluating your interests, values, and skills to make decisions about your career choices
- When you are would like to know more about the career options available to you based on a particular major
- When you would like to understand more about yourself to determine your best next step
CliftonStrengths for Students
What is CliftonStrengths for Students?
CliftonStrengths for Students is a web-based self-assessment tool that is designed to teach you what your natural talents are and how to develop your talents into strengths through the investment of time and energy during your on and off-campus experiences.
CliftonStrengths is grounded in Positive Psychology, the study of optimal human functioning that aims to discover the factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive. The goal of this assessment is to help you learn, develop and succeed using your strengths.
Benefits of Using CliftonStrengths for Students are:
- Increased engagement in school and at work
- Increased productivity in your various roles on and off campus
- Increased sense of self-empowerment, emotional well-being
To learn more about CliftonStrengths and the 34 Themes please visit this page.
When Should I Use CliftonStrengths?
CliftonStrengths is a great tool to use when you want to:
- Improve your self-awareness and teamwork
- Enhance your engagement on campus
- Identify a major or career options
- Transform your educational experience
What do you get from taking the assessment?
After taking the assessment, you will receive a number of personalized reports, including:
- Signature Themes Report, detailing their top five CliftonStrengths themes of talent
- Strengths Insight and Action-Planning Guide, including highly customized descriptions of exactly how their Signature Themes appear in their daily life plus instructions for using their CliftonStrengths to succeed
- Strengths Insight Report, featuring brief overall definitions and personalized descriptions for each of their top five themes
Accessing the Education Discount
To find out what makes you unique and thrive, review the instructions for purchasing CliftonStrengths for Students.
Additional free Self-Assessments available through the Career Connections Center:
- Use this log as a guide to:
- More clearly identify what activities and environments engage and energize you
- Reframe areas in your life where you feel stuck
- Learn how to design a life that will motivate you
Other free Self-Assessments available through outside sources:
There are additional self-assessments available that are offered through a variety of online resources that you can use to learn more about yourself and your career options.
- Use these resources to help you learn more about your interests:
- Use these tools to help you learn more about your values:
Now that I have taken these self-assessments, what’s next?
Schedule a Career Planning appointment. Career Planning appointments are 30-minute sessions where you can talk with a certified career coach about your assessment results. Your career coach can:
- Discuss ways to explore potential majors or careers.
- Assist you with identifying experiences on and off campus that will help you test and affirm information gained from your results.
- Review your application documents (resume, cover letter, LinkedIn profile, personal statement, etc.) to see areas to infuse information gained from your assessment results.
Reflect on the Information Gained
After you receive your results, it’s important to process and understand the information gained through the process of reflection. Below are a set of questions to get you started:
- What?
- What are your initial thoughts, reactions or feelings of your results?
- What new information did you learn about yourself?
- Is there any new information you have trouble seeing in yourself?
- So What?
- Why do these results matter?
- What impact will this new information have on you and your future goals?
- What changes will you need to now make?
- What new goals do you need to set for yourself?
- Now What?
- What are your next steps?
- Who are the people you will need to meet with to help you further understand your results and make any necessary changes?
- What knowledge, resources or skills will you need in order to move to the next step?
- How do these results move you towards your vision for the future?
- What additional information do you still need in order to make decisions about your future?