Analyze Your Career with a Personal SWOT

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Analyze Your Career with a Personal SWOT

• by Ian ChristieMonster Contributing Writer

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• Want a fresh way to size up the state of your
  career? How about taking a page from the
  business-school playbook and running a SWOT
  analysis? SWOT, which stands for strengths,
  weaknesses, opportunities and threats, is a
  simple yet powerful model MBA students use to
  analyze the strategic positions of companies,
  products or business situations. But you don't
  need to be an MBA to apply the SWOT technique to
  your own career planning.

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How to Create a SWOT Analysis

• The model is a basic two-by-two table, with
  strengths and weaknesses laid out in the top two
  boxes and opportunities and threats in the bottom
  two. You've probably considered your strengths
  and weaknesses already, but the SWOT model takes
  it a step further by making you think about the
  external factors that bear heavily on the health
  and direction of your career. These factors --
  mainly physical location, industry, company and
  profession -- signal potential opportunities and
  threats. Looking at the quadrants together can be
  a creative way to think about where you are in
  your career and the directions you could take.

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To get an idea of what you could incorporate into
your own SWOT chart, look at some examples in
each category
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Strengths

• Strengths are your internal, positive
  attributes and selling points. You have some
  control over these. Examples include
• Positive personal traits.
• Relevant skills, competencies, knowledge and work
  experience.
• A solid education.
• A strong network.
• Commitment, enthusiasm and passion for your
  field.

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Weaknesses

• Weaknesses are your internal negative
  attributes. You have some control over these as
  well. Examples include
• Negative personal characteristics and poor work
  habits.
• A lack of work experience or relevant experience.
  
• A lack of education.
• No network or a small one.
• A lack of direction or focus.
• Weak professional or career-management skills.

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Opportunities Opportunities are uncontrollable
external events that you can potentially
leverage. Examples include

• Favorable industry trends.
• A booming economy.
• A specific job opening.
• An upcoming company project.
• Emerging demand for a new skill or expertise.
• Use of a new technology.
• Referral to a high-powered contact.

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Threats

• Threats are uncontrollable external factors that
  may work against you and require you to take
  protective action.
• Examples include

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• Industry restructuring and consolidation.
• Changing market requirements and their impact on
  your employer.
• Changing professional standards that you don't
  meet.
• Reduced demand for one of your skills.
• Evolving technologies you're unprepared for.
• The emergence of a competitor, either to your
  company or to you personally.
• A company decision maker who does not like or
  support you.

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• An external factor can sometimes be both a threat
  and an opportunity. For example, the emergence of
  a programming language that replaces one you know
  is a threat if you do nothing about it and an
  opportunity if you commit to becoming one of the
  early experts.

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Do Your Own SWOT Analysis

• 1. Draw a two-by-two grid on a sheet of paper, or
  create one in a word-processing program.
• 2. In each quadrant, write out ideas in
  bullet-point form. Be as specific as possible.
• 3. Stretch to come up with true insights. Take a
  break if you have to, and revisit your analysis
  when you're fresh. You can even show your SWOT to
  a few close contacts to get their views.

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• 4. Edit. Delete repetitive ideas, and sharpen
  less specific ones.
• 5. Analyze what it all means. Use the tool to
• Validate your current position.
• Understand the skills, attributes and experiences
  you should emphasize and the ones you should
  downplay.
• Brainstorm possible career directions.
• Highlight opportunities to take advantage of.
• Flag possible threats.

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• 6. Determine possible actions. There are four
  types of actions you could take
• Strengthening a specific skill or adding
  something to your strengths quadrant.
• Minimizing or eliminating a weakness.
• Pursuing or exploiting an opportunity.
• Protecting yourself from threats.

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• Revisit and update
• your SWOT chart
• periodically
• to add a level of sophistication
• and effectiveness
• to your career planning.

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• ?
• Questions

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