Personal Discovery

As you consider your time at HKS and the next steps in your professional journey, it’s a good idea to clarify for yourself the reasons you chose to come to HKS. Having clarity of your purpose and goals will help you make important choices about how you spend your time here. It will also help you make the most of career-related activities you choose to take part in, including those sponsored by OCA. We encourage you to go though a self-assessment process to gather information about yourself in order to make informed career decisions.

No one book, or assessment instrument, or exercise is best or right for everyone. However, here are a few resources for you to consider:

HKS Co-Curricular Course called “Looking Within”

“Looking Within” is a 4-part course taught in partnership by the Center for Public Leadership and OCA each Fall. Its goal is to help you gain insights into your specific leadership behaviors, style preferences and favored behaviors/activities. This information is extremely valuable both in terms of your personal development and career planning. See the CPL website for more information on the course. (Registration is closed for Fall 2008.)

Career/Self Assessment Instruments

There are many career-assessment tools available online – some free, some fee-based, some which you can interpret for yourself and some which require the assistance of a certified professional for interpretation. For an introduction to a range of self-assessment tools that are widely respected, the Riley Guide presents a range of self-directed, free and fee-based instruments for personality, interests, and skill assessment.

Also recommended are:

  • Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) measures personality preferences on four different scales: Extraversion (E) – Introversion (I), Sensing (S) – Intuition (N), Thinking (T) – Feeling (F), and Judging (J) – Perceiving (P). Several OCA coaches are certified to interpret the MBTI.
  • Strengths Finder

Libraries and book stores are full of texts on self- and career-assessment. See your Career Guide binder for a list of some examples.

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