1.1 Strengths

Strengths are the assets that you have under your control and that you can use to your advantage in any situation. They are not set in stone, as they can always be supplemented by new ones, nor are they always immediately apparent so they may take some thinking about in order to unearth them. The following questions should help you with this.

• What do you think you do better than others?

  This may be based on your personal judgement but also on the remarks or assessments of other people you know and work with. The latter are particularly helpful as it is easy to be harder on yourself than other people are, and their views can provide another perspective.

• What attributes do you possess that others don’t?

  These might be particular skills, technical approaches or ways of working. Perhaps you have specific qualifications that are rare in your field or contacts that you can draw on.

• Which of your achievements are you most proud of?

  These may be work-related or not, either will do. Whatever they are, they say something about you as an individual that you can use to demonstrate your skills, values or approaches.

• Do you display particular values that help you at work?

  This might be the way that you treat other people or behave with customers or, perhaps, a specific approach that you bring to your work.

Try not to be too modest about your strengths to begin with. You can always alter the list later when you reflect on it; the important thing is to write positive things about yourself.