As many of you know, I teach the Career Planning and Development course at George Brown College here in Toronto. A recent class focused on self-assessment and I wanted the students to have a better understanding of themselves in order to work on articulating what their strengths are, know what sets them apart from the competition and to build out their ‘competitive advantage.’
The assignment was to ask about a dozen of their friends, colleagues, fellow students, co-workers, family members, etc. to describe them in a few words. I thought it would be a good exercise and a starting point to discussing how others see them, how they can begin to work on any negative descriptors and learn how best to promote the positives they have.
I promised to take part in the exercise myself and sent an e-mail to about 18 people in my network. It was interesting to read the responses (thank you to those who took the time to respond!) but even more enlightening when I put the responses into a Word Cloud builder “ABCya” (www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm) and generated a word cloud. The larger the words in the word cloud, the more times they appeared in the responses.
It was eye-opening to get a visual of how others see you. I recommend the exercise for everyone – but especially for those in transition who are looking to get a better sense of self.
Share yours….if you dare!
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