Personal Strengths Exercise: You at Your Best

Personal Strengths

A key way to get more out of your job is to understand and consistently use your personal strengths.  One informal strategy for assessing your personal strengths is to think carefully about a recent situation when you were at your best. Give it a shot. A Personal Strengths Exercise First, start by identifying the situation, […]

Career Assessment Tests: Which to offer students for career decisions?

Assessment Tests

Career assessment tests play a critical role in helping students and individuals make crucial career choices, such as: What should I major in? What type of work am I suited to? What career will bring me purpose and meaning?  Using a valid career assessment test provides accurate information about the individual, and avoids a common […]

Has finding a purpose become a cliché?

Purpose carries a strong definition that often gets watered down. Everyone wants to know their purpose and ways to find it. Being a sophomore in college, I was curious if purpose is something you can really find by taking an assessment or quiz online. I know my purpose and how I live that purpose, but […]

Means to Live, But No Meaning to Live For: How to Find Meaning in Work

A book you’ve read at least once in your life – and need to read again – is Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.  Frankl describes his time in a World War II Nazi death camp, and how, while nearly everything he has is taken from him, he survives by discovering the purpose of life […]

Finding Academic Success Inside and Outside of Class

School can be challenging – sometimes the classes are difficult but sometimes even showing up to class is difficult – and the success of other students can appear to be effortless. The key to academic success is to understand that your learning is a skill that you can develop and to realize that the good […]

Get Ahead and Set SMARTER Goals for Work and Life

Are your goals working for you? Goals are a powerful influence on behavior; they help us organize our activity and pursue a particular target (like getting a degree, getting a job, or achieving a milestone) with purpose. Yet people struggle with setting goals in work and life; just 25% of adults have clear goals for […]

How Your Career Helps You Achieve Your Life Goals

What things are at the top of your list of life goals?  Is it a list of cities you would like to visit in the future or vacations you would like to take? Maybe purchasing your dream car or paying off student debt? Perhaps you’re thinking of improving your physical health, starting your own business, […]

How Do Vocational Choices Impact Career Success?

When you think about career success, what comes to mind? A paycheck, promotion, hitting your performance goals, soaring past them, having a sense of job security? Maybe it’s the feeling that you’ve finally found a job you love or are receiving recognition for your hard work. The point is, the notion of career success varies […]

Career Guidance: Make Sure You Get What You Need

Authors: Bryan Dik Ph.D. and Ryan Duffy Ph.D. All of us make choices about our career paths, and all of us benefit from guidance and support as we do so.  Many of us have used career counseling to help navigate key points of transition. Career counseling ordinarily involves a one-on-one, face-to-face interaction facilitated by a […]

How Do I Transition From Military to Civilian Life?

You might feel overwhelmed starting life as a civilian after your military career. The military provides structure, hierarchy, and clear direction that can often be missing from civilian employment. You may wonder whether your skills or experiences have any meaning in the civilian world. You’re not alone in feeling this way. While every veteran’s experience […]