SWOT Guide

Preptel’s FREE Interview SWOT Analysis Guide

Preptel’s FREE Interview SWOT Analysis Guide shows you how to position yourself during the second interview, when showing your interviewer right where you fit in is the most important.

What more competitive arena is there today than the job market? When companies want to face the competition, they use a SWOT Analysis to assess their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats on the market. Use the same tool to find out how you stack up against your employment competition.

SWOT Analysis

Your Personal SWOT Analysis

• Use the Preptel Resume Writer & Resumeter Guide to explore your own self-perception of your strengths.
• Try to put yourself inside a prospective employer’s head as you consider your strong points.
• Avoid false modesty, but also be brutally honest and realistic with yourself.
• Find what you love! Sometime your passion and joy for what you do is your strongest asset!
• In assessing your weaknesses, think about what issues crop up on the job, but also think about what you’re doing to improve.

Questions to ask for your own SWOT Analysis

1. What is your current situation?
2. What are your strengths and your weaknesses? Use the Preptel Resume Writer & Resumeter Guide to find out more about “Noun 1” and “Noun 2” words you can use here.
3. How can you capitalize on your strengths and overcome your weaknesses?
4. What are the external opportunities and threats in your chosen career field?

Strengths

• What advantages do you possess? Education? Experience? Insight? Fresh Ideas?
• What do you do well?
• Why did you decide to enter the field when you graduate(d)?
• What is motivating your current inquiry with this company?
• What need do you see yourself filling at the company?
• Do you have notable achievements to share – do they add prestige or knowledge to your new company?
• What makes you successful?
• What self assessment tests and survey results can you share with the employer, or draw upon for information here?
• What will make your contributions unique and valuable to the company?
• What is the most important thing you do every day at work?

Weaknesses

• We’re all works in progress – what are your weaknesses?
• What do you struggle to do, what do you fail to do?
• What factors did you delete from your resume in the red/yellow exercise from Preptel’s Resume Writer & Resumeter Guide?
• What affects your job performance in a negative way, and how?

Opportunities

• What’s good in your life right now – learning? Growth of another sort?
• Why is now the perfect time in the industry to receive your contributions? In the company?
• What are you doing right now, even if you’re unemployed, to stay involved in your career area?
• If you’re unemployed, how has the time off given you the opportunity to improve? Still working? What have you been able to learn or observe through your present job?
• Could your career advance through education, classes, volunteer opportunities, or other methods?
• Do you need a particular credential – educational or other license?
• What is your goal – you’re doing this to be somewhere within the next 3 years – what is that?
• Useful opportunities can come from such things as:
  • Changes in technology and markets on both a broad and industry-specific scale
  • Changes in government policy related to your field
  • Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes, etc.
  • Funding requirements, Grants, Awards, Scholarships
  • Industry innovation, mergers, company ownership changes

Threats

• What are your current obstacles to doing what you want to do?
• Do you have changing job requirements?
• Do you need new technology skills?
• Does your present career have a future? Is the industry changing?
• Is there conflict in the job place that makes it difficult to do your work?
• How is the economy affecting you?
• Do internal company changes threaten your position?

SWOT ANALYSIS EXAMPLE:

Putting your SWOT Analysis to good use.

After you’ve analyzed your strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities, you should use that information to plan your job market strategy.

Objectives—define your career objectives. What’s your ideal job? What are some other positions you could accept? What is your 2 year career goal? Your five-year career goal?

Marketing Strategies—You’ll need a broad marketing strategy or “game plan” for attaining your objectives. Preptel Membership can help! What are your targeted companies? Can you gain a fast-track introduction or employee referral?

Action Programs—What will be done? When will it be done? Your key task here is setting specific timetables and deadlines for getting the career and Opportunities and Threats answered through your Strengths while improving or avoiding your Weaknesses.

Strengths and Abilities Assessments that will help!

Keirsey

Fill in a questionnaire of about 70 questions, which is automatically scored on the Web. Your results will be in the form of Myers-Briggs Types, and suggestions of appropriate careers are made. Free.
http://www.keirsey.com/sorter/instruments2.aspx?partid=0

MAPP

Discover your strengths, your styles for communications, learning and leadership. See what career is best for you.
http://www.assessment.com/MAPPMembers/Welcome.asp?accnum=06-5150-000.00&OVRAW=free%20mapp%20assessment&OVKEY=motivate&OVMTC=advanced&OVADID=890984521&OVKWID=5368783521&OVCAMPGID=82369521&OVADGRPID=397774409&OVNDID=ND1

Strengths Finder – http://strengthsfinder.com/113647/Homepage.aspx

Myers-Briggs – http://www.ransdellassociates.com/ & http://www.knowyourtype.com/