4 Employment SWOT Analysis

Now that you have done a thorough examination of yourself and your career goals, let’s summarize this information in a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis includes your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. We are going to complete one focused on your job search.

Your strengths should include the areas where you feel you are most valuable to an employer.  Your weaknesses should include those areas where you feel you are least valuable to an employer. Some of these you have identified in your skill development chart, and some of them may be things you do not feel that you are able to develop to the level they should be for a professional in your field. (Think back to my being an introvert. As a communication professional, being an introvert could be considered a weakness.)

In the opportunities section write all the positive things that are going for you as you search for a career position. For example, if there are a lot of job openings in your field, you would write that in this section, or if you have connections at a local company that will help you secure an internship in your field, you could write that in this section.

The threats section gives you the chance to write all the things that concern you as you set out on your job search. For example, “I don’t want to relocate, but it looks like I will have to in order to final a career position in my field” or “entry level jobs in my field don’t pay as much as I thought they would.” Identifying the concerns and worries that you have will help you come to terms with them as you conduct your job search. You may find that there are ways you can overcome these or learn to live with them once you write them down, examine and discuss them. Usually, we can’t overcome all of our concerns, but learning to prioritize what is most important and to let go of what is least important can be helpful, and is part of the journey.

Once your SWOT analysis is complete, you have a full picture of you and your job search. This will help you to focus as you examine career positions and find the one that is right for you.