What is Career Assessment?

In order to explore majors and work opportunities, it is important to first gain an understanding of your interests, values, strengths, and family/cultural influences that impact the decision-making process. Our career counselors can help with this exploration process. Through discussion and activities with a counselor, you will gain a better idea of who you are and what is important to you.

When you meet with a career counselor, you might be asked questions about your previous experiences and interests. This can help both you and the counselor get a better understanding of what is important to you and identify the questions you would like answered. From there, the counselor will work with you to select activities that will help you gain a better understanding of yourself, your academic interests and the world of work. Some of these activities might include standardized inventories that will give you feedback on general themes as well as specific occupational titles to consider. They may give you ideas you have never considered or confirm your current areas of interest. The following are examples of some of the activities and standardized inventories used at the Career Center:

• Ideal Day: This activity helps you identify the types of activities you would like to pursue in your life after graduation.
• Majors Card Sort: This card sort contains information about all majors available the University of Oregon. If helps you learn more about what you will learn in each major and allows you to prioritize majors based on your interests.
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): This personality instrument helps indicate your preferred manner of taking in and evaluating information and will identify your preferred style of working, decision-making and communicating. It can help you evaluate how you are likely to operate in a particular setting and job. 
• Skillscan: This card sort helps you identify the set of skills you most want to use in your future work. This can be helpful not only in exploring careers, but also in writing resumes, cover letters and preparing for interviews.
• Strong Interest Inventory (SII): This inventory indexes the degree of similarity between your interests and the interests of occupational groups whose members are satisfied with their work. You will receive feedback on your strongest interest themes as well as which occupational titles match these interests.
• Values Sort: This activity helps you identify and prioritize values that can influence your satisfaction with potential jobs.