Self-Concept and Presentation to Prospective Employers Why

Self-Concept and Presentation to Prospective Employers Why is understanding yourself important in your career development? In general, those who find careers within their natural interests and abilities are more likely to be happy than people who end up in careers or positions that do not match their interests and skills.

Understanding yourself is important for career development because prospective employers always want to see indications that job applicants are self-aware enough to appreciate their weaknesses and areas where they can make improvements as well as their strengths and area where they may already be strong, They are especially interested to know that you have a realistic perspective about how they can succeed in the positions that they see (Beatty 2003 p35).

From a much more practical perspective, understanding yourself is a fundamentally important life skill because it is impossible to make meaningful improvements in many areas of life, whether in the vocational realm or in the personal realm if one cannot recognize and admit faults and areas of relative need for improvement.

It is also important to understand yourself for the purposes of career development because one of the more obvious aspects of any career is that the person is more likely to find professional fulfillment in positions that are rewarding to the person and in a professional capacity that matches the person's areas of interest and aptitude.

If a person does not understand himself, it is much more difficult to identify what types of careers and positions might be fulfilling to that person in the long run and to differentiate them from the types of careers and positions that would not be as fulfilling for that person. The fact that most people have to spend much of their adult lives working is simply a basic feature of modern society.

How can you ensure that an employer will realize that you have a clear grasp of who you are and what you have to offer? You can ensure that a prospective employer will realize that you have a clear grasp of who you are and what you have to offer by including that information in your resume and cover letter in ways that make it very clear.

More specifically, you can use the application process and the resume and interview components of that process to help demonstrate to prospective employers that you can bring significant value to the organization where you are seeking employment (Beatty 2003 pp 34-40). In principle, you would try to do that by presenting the details of your previous work experience in a way that connects you previous positional responsibilities and your knowledge, skills, and abilities to the specific types of positional responsibilities encompassed by the new position you are seeking (Beatty 2003 pp 10-11).

From a practical perspective, prospective employers would obviously want to see evidence that you are sufficiently self-aware to recognize what past failures of yours were your fault. More importantly, prospective employers would obviously want to see.