I think my greatest strength is my stick-to-it-iveness and desire to understand, my "agency" towards learning. I think this strength combines the overarching impressions from my first 3 Paring top 4 strengths. The Blaze driver means that I wish to “work to influence outcomes and gain mastery” and I do consider myself to be a lifetime learner who is curious about many things. I am always trying to challenge myself, learn something new, and pick up new skills. Beyond that, I really enjoy being the go-to person when someone needs help and answers to questions and I enjoy the research aspect of finding a solution. I know this is my greatest strength because it has been a lifelong mission for me to learn new things and in my last role I was the “subject matter expert” and I really enjoyed that role and being the most knowledgeable person on the team who everyone went to for help. If I am good at it, and enjoy it, then it must be my greatest strength!
I believe that I work best on my own but with plenty of opportunities for feedback and help from other people. I like to be a part of a team but with clear, individual duties that we are each in charge of completing. If someone is behind and needs help then the team can activate to help them with whatever it is they need to get done, so I like collaboration in that way. When I have a new skill to learn I like to start by reading the given material and take notes. Then ideally, seeing someone else do it and then trying it on my own with some supervision. I want to read through the provided information to get a basic idea and take notes about what I think is important. Seeing someone work through it helps to guide me toward any questions I may have and helps to solidify the information for me. Additionally, I like a self structured approach to my work day and I like being able to organize and prioritize my tasks. I am flexible enough to be able to handle changes and surprises that may arise during the workday and sometimes look forward to the change of pace these may bring to the workday.
After reading the report from Pairin it seems like my ability to work more collaboratively on a team with others and my own self-awareness and “self-regard and balance” are areas for improvement for me. The report confirmed that I do like working on my own, but conflicted with my personal belief that I am a “tactful, diplomatic, thoughtful” and friendly person, so finding a way to better balance these attributes would be great. How can I bring my friendly nature into a collaborative work environment and use this to enjoy working with others? How can I turn my friendly nature into a better understanding and empathy for others and how can I encourage myself to engage with the team and community? The report suggested that I have not “fully realized how valuable [I] am” and working through some of my own self-criticism and doubt would definitely be an improvement I would like to make. How can I bring my best and believe in myself more fully?
One of my strengths is my own agency toward learning so this strength along with my passion for learning and ability to stick with things even when they are hard (my grit) are going to serve me well going forward; both here at Turing and in my future career. There is always something new coming along in software development, so my existing passion for learning will continue to help me gain new skills, which will always be great to add to a resume or start a new project at my current job. I also hope to use my friendliness to help me network better and engage myself in the development community. Doing these things will help me right awat to get a job and be very useful going forward in my new career. I am hoping my desire to learn will propel me through the Turing course. Since it's something I like doing anyway, then I should enjoy my time and the work required of me at Turing and continue to view it as an achievable but challenging goal.
You can look for jobs that specify the kind of work you would be doing on the job, so you can tailor your job search to jobs that fit your personal strengths and preferences. Knowing your personal strengths (beyond the technical ability to program) can help you to sell yourself during job interviews and would allow you to bring those additional soft skills to light. If you know and are able to articulate these skills to a prospective employer you can let them know that you would excel at that portion of the job, and you wouldn’t need any additional training for this as a new hire. I know from working in HR previously that technical skills aren't the only reason companies hire people and soft skills and other attributes can make the difference between 2 candidates with similar knowledge bases. Additionally, if you know your weaknesses you know what you can improve upon and gain experience to better yourself which could turn into your next strength!
