Your career journey is deeply personal and rooted in self-discovery. It's about aligning who you are with what you do. This page is your starting point for a career path that resonates with your values, leverages your skills, and fulfills your aspirations.
Knowing yourself is one of the most important steps in your career journey. To develop career ideas, you need to better understand your interests, values, strengths, and skills and how they relate to meaningful work.
You can start this process through three pathways:
1. Self Reflection
2. Career self-assessment tools
3. Talking to people
Want to dig a bit deeper? Try these activities:
Thinking About Career-Life Choices
1. Self-Reflection
Reflecting on activities you have participated in, including school, work, volunteering and leisure, will help you gain insight into your interests. Ask yourself the following questions and look for themes (e.g. a preference for activities that involve working with your hands or people):
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What did I enjoy or not enjoy in the experience?
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What made the experience meaningful?
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Which (if any) aspects of the activity would you like to do again?
To gain more insight into how this self-reflection can help you explore your future career directions, you can join one of our self-exploration programs. Dream Job Academy and workshops like Know Your Skills and Exploring Meaningful Work or a Career Chat on Exploring Career Options can help - look them up on CLNx to register.
2. Career Assessment Tools
No magic assessment can tell you which career is best for you. However, career assessments can be informative tools to learn more about how your personality, strengths, interests and values connect with potential careers and meaningful work. Here is a list of resources for career assessment.
Here are different kinds of career assessment tools that can help you think through your interests, values and what aligns with your personality.
Interests
Explore Career Cruising (on CLNx Career Resource Library). It is a website that offers multiple non-assessment tools for self-discovery
Personality
16 Personalities is a free online personality assessment that focuses on Mind, energy, nature, tactics and identity.
Values
A career assessment tool to help you understand and prioritize what makes you thrive.
Other Resources
- Job Bank Canada Career quizzes and tests can help you choose, change, or develop your career. They can also be a starting point in your journey to get to know yourself better and explore the wide range of career opportunities available.
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The Clifton StrengthsFinder is a web-based assessment of personality from the perspective of positive psychology. It helps you discover your top strengths and offers advice on how to focus and develop in those areas professionally. If you are interested taking this assessment, join the Explore and Build Your Strengths using Clifton Strengths for Students™ program through Clubs & Leadership Development..
3. Talking to people
Talking to people is a great way to learn about diverse career paths, and to clarify what activities you are interested in, what matters to you and what skills you want to develop for future work. To start connecting with alumni and professionals, check out Ten Thousand Coffees or Career Navigator.
To learn more about strategies for effectively connecting with people, attend our Networking workshops or Optimizing Your LinkedIn, you can sign up on clnx.
Looking for more ways to explore?
To gain more insight on how this self-reflection can help you explore your future career directions, you can join our self-exploration programs and workshops like Know Your Skills and Exploring Meaningful Work, or a Career Chat on Exploring Career Options.
Other ways to gain clarity
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What is Out There?: Explore strategies and tools that help you align your core values and needs in career decision-making
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What’s Next?: Ready to take action? Find resources on networking, resume building, and actionable steps toward your career goals.