Career SWOT Analysis Assignment

This tool is a marketing analysis using the SWOT technique.

A SWOT analysis focuses on the internal and external environments, examining Strengths (S) and Weaknesses (W) in the internal environment and Opportunities (O) and Threats (T) in the external environment.

Imagine your SWOT analysis to be structured like the example below.

Once you have reviewed the questions below and the framework of the attached SWOT analysis please do the following:

1) Create your own Career SWOT Analysis:

To construct your own SWOT analysis to set a course for your career planning, examine your current situation. What are your strengths and weaknesses?

How can you capitalize on your strengths and overcome your weaknesses? What are the external opportunities and threats in your chosen career field?

Please think beyond what is listed in the example. Take time to reflect on your own personal experiences to make this tool more meaningful for you.

SWOT Analysis Questions for Job-Seekers in Career Planning

These questions are designed to help you with developing your career SWOT Analysis:

Strengths

•What are your advantages?

•What do you do well?

•Why did you decide to enter the field you will enter upon graduation?

•What were the motivating factors and influences?

•Do these factors still represent some of your inherent strengths?

•What need do you expect to fill within your organization?

•What have been your most notable achievements?

•To what do you attribute your success?

•How do you measure your success?

•What knowledge or expertise will you bring to the company you join that may not have been available to the organization before?

•What is your greatest asset?

Weaknesses

•What could be improved?

•What do you do badly?

•What should you avoid?

•What are your professional weaknesses?

•How do they affect your job performance? (These might include weakness in technical skill areas or in leadership or interpersonal skills.)

•Think about your most unpleasant experiences in school or in past jobs and consider whether some aspect of your personal or professional life could be a root cause.

Opportunities

•Where are the promising prospects facing you?

•What is the "state of the art" in your particular area of expertise?

•Are you doing everything you can to enhance your exposure to this area?

•What formal training and education can you add to your credentials that might position you appropriately for more opportunities?

•Would an MBA or another graduate degree add to your advantage?

•How quickly are you likely to advance in your chosen career?

•Useful opportunities can come from such things as:

o Changes in technology and markets on both a broad and industry-specific scale

o Changes in government policy related to your field

o Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes, etc.

Threats

•What obstacles do you face?

•Are the requirements for your desired job field changing?

•Does changing technology threaten your prospective position?

•What is the current trend line for your personal area of expertise?

•Could your area of interest be fading in comparison with more emergent fields?

•Is your chosen field subject to internal politics that will lead to conflict?

•Is there any way to change the politics or to perhaps defuse your involvement in potential disputes?

•How might the economy negatively affect your future company and your work group?

•Will your future company provide enough access to new challenges to keep you sharp -- and marketable -- in the event of sudden unemployment?

SWOT Analysis

INTERNAL

Your Strengths

Your Weaknesses

EXTERNAL

Opportunities in Your Career Field

Threats in Your Career Field

Below is an example of a completed analysis:

INTERNAL

Strengths

Internal positive aspects that are under control and upon which you may capitalize in planning:

•Work Experience

•Education, including value-added features

•Strong technical knowledge within your field (e.g. hardware, software, programming languages)

•Specific transferable skills (e.g., communication, teamwork, leadership skills

•Personal characteristics (e.g., strong work ethic, self-discipline, ability to work under pressure,creativity, optimism, or a high level of energy

Weaknesses

Internal negative aspects that are under your control and that you may plan to improve:

•Lack of Work Experience

•Low GPA, wrong major

•Lack of goals, lack of self-knowledge, lack of specific job knowledge

EXTERNAL

Opportunities

Positive external conditions that you do not control but of which you can plan to take advantage:

•Positive trends in your field that will create more jobs (e.g., growth, globalization, technological advances)

•Opportunities you could have in the field by enhancing your education

•Field is particularly in need of your set of skills

Threats

Negative external conditions that you do not control but the effect of which you may be able to lessen:

•Negative trends in your field that diminish jobs (downsizing, obsolescence)

•Competition from your cohort of college graduates