Self Assessment and Career Choices - Research Paper Example

Self Assessment Before starting professional life it is significant for an individual to perform self assessment in order to make sound career related decisions. Self assessment helps an individual in identifying positions and roles that best suit them and it even helps them in identifying the departments in which their traits will be most effective. This research will focus on self assessment while focusing on the traits of emotional intelligence, locus of control, risk taking ability and cognitive style. This report will even focus on what jobs are suitable in comparison to the self assessment. Discussion On Self Assessment Emotional intelligence refers to an individual’s ability to identify his/her emotions and their ability to control their emotions. It even refers to an individual’s ability to identify the emotional issues that are being experienced by others. Identification of others emotional issues can help an individual in solving their emotional issues in order to motivate them to focus on organizational aims and objectives. On the emotional intelligence test that was available online I scored 61 points and on the emotional intelligence test that was available in the text book I scored 80 points. The main difference between the online and text book test is that the text book test in much elaborate. Secondly there is even a difference in the way both the test is scored and responses are ranked. The issue with the online test was that it contains more than 100 questions which become quite boring and dull. This means that I have higher degree of emotional intelligence and have the ability to control my emotions. This means that as a manager I will be able to control my emotions in the workplace and I will even be able to motivate my employees by identifying their emotional issues and solving those issues (Whetten 63). Locus of control refers to an individual’s perception of control he/she has over things that are happening in his/her life. On the test of locus of control I scored four which means that I have strong internal locus of control. Individuals who have strong internal locus of control tend to hold themselves responsible for all the events occurring in their life and in their environment (Whetten 79). They do not hold others responsible for any negative events and believe that all events are outcomes of their own behaviors. The findings of my locus of control are consistent with myself perception regarding my locus of control. Having high locus of control I will take full responsibility of all the negative outcomes as a manager and will not hold others responsible for those outcomes. Tolerance of ambiguity refers to the ability of an individual to make decisions that are creative in nature. It can even be regarded as an individual’s ability to face ambiguous or challenging situations. Some individuals have high tolerance of ambiguity while others have lower levels of tolerance. I scored 39 on the test of tolerance of ambiguity and this means that I have higher tolerance of ambiguity. This even means that as a manager I will not jump to conclusions and instead promote team work and contribution from others (Whetten 78). As a manager if I face any novice problems, I will consult my team. I will indulge them in decision making and ask them to provide different solutions for solving the issue. This will help me in identifying creative solutions for new and unknown problems. The cognitive style indicator is a great tool for identifying the preference of an individual towards processing information. The indicator helps in identifying how a manager acts when he/she has to make a decision. On the cognitive style indicator I attained 4 score for knowing, planning as well as creating. The scores I have achieved in all three areas are quite high. This means that while making decisions I do not prefer to solve issues based on passed methods of solving similar or novice issues. I scored 4 in the area of knowing and this reflects that while making decisions I first tend to look for information and facts and the decisions are make are rational in nature. I scored 4 on planning which means that before making any decision and implementing those decisions I tend to plan well and then take the decision. On creating I scored 4 and this reflects that I feel easy in trial and error. This means that I prefer to experiment with creative solutions to solving problems (Whetten 80). The findings of the cognitive style indicator exhibits that I apply laissez-faire management style. This reflects that as a manager I allow my employees to participate in decision making and obtain ideas from them regarding how the problem should be defined and regarding solutions for the problem. This means that I am a supporter of making creative decisions. Discussion Of Career Choices The scores of emotional intelligence, locus of control, tolerance of ambiguity and cognitive style indicator suggest that as an individual I have the ability to realize my emotional issues and I can even control my emotions and I do not allow emotions to disturb my work. The scores even suggest that I take full responsibility of all the events that take place in my professional and personal life and I allow others to work with me. These scores further suggest that I believe in creative ways of solving problem and I promote it by indulging others in decision making steps. On the basis of these findings I believe that I am a good fit for the human resource department. This is because as a human resource professional I have to be quite emotionally intelligent to identify issues faced by my employees and have to solve their problems. As human resource professionals I have to work with people from other departments such as the line manager to make decisions regarding compensation and benefits as well as recruitment and selection. The results from my tests help in identifying that I am open to others opinions. This means that I will listen to what the line managers have to say and incorporate their insight in making decisions. Works Cited Whetten, David A, and Kim S Cameron. Developing Management Skills. 1st ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2011. Print. Read More