Week 3 Blog Question
What are
your five strengths? How do these
strengths align with your understanding of your strengths? Is there one strength which you expected to
find that you didn’t?
April 20: Interviewing, Part II-- PLEASE ANSWER AFTER MICHELLE'S MODULE
Now that we've discussed interviewing once, let's do it again WITH Michelle's take. Of Michelle's top 10 tips for successful interviews (available here ), which tips stuck out to you? I found myself resonating with #1. Being able to reflect on ourselves in addition to the organization helps us better recognize what we can offer to the organization. By taking a step back, I found myself better able to envision that future. Also, the STAR method (Tip #7) was pretty great, and it helped me conceptualize how to consider offering an answer with that method in mind. Next, give Big Interview a try (as noted on our assignment portal). You'll have to create an account, which took me all of 15 seconds. Once you're on, you'll note that there's a lot to explore there. I'd recommend at leave clicking on "Practice" and trying a few " General mock interview " questions. It's pretty cool because you have a human asking you the q...
My five strengths are restorative, intellection, learner, input and achiever. I was surprised how accurately these strengths fit me and how they seem to put into words things I possess but never really knew how to describe.
ReplyDeleteMy first strength is restorative which basically means that I am very solution orientated. I totally agree with this as I am always trying to problem solve. It is interesting because this strength also talks about how restorative individuals can be overly self-critical which describes me perfectly.
My second strength is intellection. I have always understood myself to be someone who is very introspective. I like to think about things a lot. I also like to seek out people who make me think and challenge me intellectually. I also do a lot of writing which helps me express my ideas and work through them when I am having a tough time.
My third strength is learner. This one is all about having a desire to learn and enjoying learning. This is totally accurate for me because I feel like I am always really excited to learn a new skill or knowledge.
My fourth strength is input. It is similar to the learner strength as it focuses on constantly seeking out new information. I feel like this describes me well because I read a lot and am always looking for new ways to look at things and for new knowledge. I am never really content with the knowledge I have and always am driven to know more.
My last strength is achiever which also seems to fit me well because I am constantly making lists of tasks I need to get done. I feel like I am always setting goals and doing my best to achieve them.
One strength that I expected to find and didn't is analytical because it is about thinking about reasons and causes which I feel I do quite a bit.
My main five strengths are consistency, relator, discipline, harmony, and empathy. What I found most interesting is how tailored the results of the test were for me. I certainly was not expecting much because I figured this test was going to be like any other test out there. I have to say I proven wrong and am ultimately satisfied with the results because they are truly tailored to me as a person and worker.
ReplyDeleteMy first strength consistency is in short that I am the type of person who is craves routine and also strives for treating people the same. Some people might call me a rule follower because of the consistency that I tend to need and want so that things go smoothly for me. Based on the report what makes me stand out here is that I could more or less be the one who would be the "matter-of-fact" type and efficient.
My next strength relator is someone who enjoys sharing close relationships with others. In other words I would find it satisfactory to work with a friend to achieve the goals set before me. I have found myself to be very friendly with people and I can relate to some. I find that working is better when you can have a friend to work with. In the work setting sometimes having someone to work with can go a long way especially for someone like me.
My third strength is discipline. When it comes to discipline I am the type of person who values structure and routine. For me I can't live with out some sort of structure. This is one of my more bigger strengths I think because I feel like a mess when things are not in order and don't have a set routine. Sure there are times when not holding to a routine is ok. However, in the work place I find that routine and structure are key for my ultimate success.
My fourth strength is Harmony. What this means is that I am the type of person who likes to have little to no conflict. Someone who likes to have consensus. For me if I feel that there is too much conflict I feel that I can't work well until I "fix" it. In reality I know that conflict is unavoidable, however sometimes having consensus is what ends up making the the best environment for me.
My fifth and final strength is Empathy. This strength describes me very well. In short I am the type of person who can use other peoples feelings by imagining themselves in other's lives or situations. This for me is sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing. I would have to be careful how I use it and where especially in the work place. Once thing that I can for sure say is that when you can imagine walking a mile in someone's shoes it can get you far.
My five strengths in order from strongest to least strong are; Strategic, Command, Activator, Individualization, and Achiever. This both surprises me and doesn’t. I’ll discuss this for each of them in the order their listed above.
ReplyDeleteWhat surprises me about strategic is how high up it is. When thinking of my strengths, I definitely think of myself more as individualistic and working toward my goals than being strategic. Fair, I do like to plan most things out, but I love the feel of fate. Going not where I planned but where it feels right.
For Command, I do understand it. My family has always described me as stubborn and someone who takes charge of situations. I don’t like to leave things up to other people because I have learned through my twenty-one years that the only person who is most reliable to get what I want done is myself. So this one doesn’t surprise me.
Activator took me a moment. I didn’t quite understand what it was saying at first, but after reading the description and googling it a bit, I understand why it is the way it is. Again, I will work toward my goals, and do everything in my power to make my ideas light. I’m writing several novels at the moment because of this.
Individualization surprised me only in how far down it was. Again, I am very self-reliant, but I have always been fascinated with how others perceive the world and how they work. It’s one of the big reasons why I love the Flipside so much, and why I go out to try and help people. To me, everyone’s unique, and I do my best to encourage this. So, seeing it in the top five was not surprising, but seeing it so low down was.
Finally, Achiever. I suppose I have a lot of stamina as it says for projects, however this one surprised me on being on here at all because I do not see myself as someone who is always busy. I do like to be kept busy at work, as I feel it’s rather silly to be there and not doing anything, but in my alone time I do things that I enjoy and relax me. I suppose writing is something that keeps me busy, but I don’t see it as that.
Overall, I can’t think of any goals that don’t describe me. These all fit pretty well.
My five strengths, in order, are Input, Positivity, Empathy, Communication, and Developer. Considering that this was a strengths test, I feel like I shouldn't have been as surprised as I would be if my horoscope fit me for the week, but I also found that these strengths really did align with how I viewed my strengths before this test.
ReplyDeleteInput tells me that I have a need to "collect and archive". This is me spot-on. I love trivia, fun facts, random information, etc., and I like that I have a little bit of knowledge on everything. This surprised me a little bit, only because I didn't know that there was an actual name for it, or that it could be considered a strength.
I felt that positivity was a given for me. I've been told by multiple people over multiple years of my life that my positive attitude is a defining trait of mine. I also always try to remain positive; I like to keep the mood light. I like to make people laugh. No surprises here.
Empathy is one that really surprised me. I've never felt like I've actually been good at putting myself in other people's shoes and seeing things from an opposing perspective. However, I get asked for advice a fair amount, and so maybe that's where empathy comes in for me.
Number four was communications, the main point of which is "finding it easy to put thoughts into words". As someone who has a lot of thoughts and as someone who likes words, this fits me pretty well. The first example of my demonstration of this strength comes from memories of having to write group papers, wherein I was always in charge of dictation because my group mates knew I could take what points we wanted to get across and actually verbalize it.
The last strength I got was developer. I don't know really how to process this one. I feel like I relate more to the second half ("derive satisfaction from evidence and progress") more than the first ("recognize and cultivate the potential in others"). I'm not quite in a position in any sphere of my life where I'm cultivating potential in others, but I do know that I like seeing progress come to fruition, whether that's at work, in band class, or simply crossing out days on my calendar.
My five strengths were learner, intellection, input, individualization, and achiever. After going through the full list of strengths, I did find that my results did make the most sense for me. What did surprise me was their ranking. I would have thought individualization and achiever would have been higher than learner and intellection. Of the five that I got, I did think was interesting was input and I think this result matched me the least. While I feel that I am quite curious, I didn’t think it was significant enough to both be on among my top five strengths and even so high on that list, being ranked third.
ReplyDeleteOut of the four domains, my results had three out of four. Achiever is among the executing domain, individualizer is in relationship building, and learner, intellection, and input were all in strategic thinking. The fact that my top three results were all under strategic thinking felt a little strange to me at first, but this does seem to align with my work style. Especially in the past, I would be more focused on the quality of my work before I would build relationships with my coworkers. While I do want to put out the best work I can, this is an area that I would like to ease up on a bit. I want to shift my focus to be more focused on building relationships in the future. I think focusing on other domains and creating more of a balance could be greatly beneficial especially since none of my results were in the influencing domain and most were in strategic thinking.
My five strengths are Communication, Achiever, Futuristic, Consistency, and Adaptability.
ReplyDeleteCommunication is my strongest strength (haha I had to). I definitely agree with this as I've been involved in theatre and forensics interpretation for basically all my life. Being involved in the fine arts helped me come out of my shell. Now, I love public speaking and am easily able to communicate with others no matter the circumstance. In addition, I am an aspiring author (my major is English-Creative Writing). Ever since I was little, I've been writing stories. It makes sense I have strong communication skills as I excel in both written and verbal communication.
Achiever, my second strongest strength, also suits me very well. I am constantly setting goals for myself, making color coded lists with little boxes to check off, and working as hard as I can to make my goals a reality.
Futuristic. Hm, I guess I am indifferent towards this "strength". I've always thought of Furturistic as a weakness. I'm always worrying about the future, even when I know I can't control it. On the other hand, I can see how it would be a strength because that means I care and I know all the little things I do will add up to impact my future. For example, I decided to accept an internship in order to better prepare myself for my future career.
I agree with Consistency as one of my top five strengths. I thrive off of routine. In fact, I really dislike change and life transitions. On the bright side, I am good at developing a routine in order to stay consistent and get things done.
I also agree with Adaptability. I am able to easily adapt to my situation, whether that means stepping up in a group as a leader, collaborating with others as a team, listening to a mentor, explaining my ideas to others, etc. I think this is a really good skill to have because every scenario is different.
My five strengths are intellection, input, discipline, responsibility, and deliberative. I find, for the most part, that the descriptions of these strengths line up with character traits I see in myself. Under intellection, it claims that I like to think a lot, and that’s certainly true, and that I tend to be introspective. I feel like a lot of my writing is introspective, and I like considering larger concepts when I write. Under input, my themes sheet says, “[Artifacts and facts] can be acquired and then stored away. . . . At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away,” and I certainly relate to that. I collect a lot of things, and once I have a thing, I don’t like getting rid of it, all for the distant possibility that I might want it again! This makes spring cleaning very difficult. I found the discipline trait to be the most relatable to me, even though it came third on my list. The themes sheet claims that I like order and routine. I see that in myself in both my personal life and my work environment. There’s a certain way I like doing things, and it’s not that other ways of doing things are bad, it’s just easier for me to commit to one way and stick with it. The responsibility trait also talked about that--how I will fully take ownership of my commitments. I feel like I am very careful with agreeing to commitments for this reason, because I don’t like completing a task halfway. The deliberative trait describes me as a private person and someone who analyzes risks, which is certainly true. I keep a lot of personal details to myself, and I usually do not ever follow through with an action without considering the risks and all possible outcomes first.
ReplyDeleteThe five strengths I was perceived to have based off this test are Learner, Empathy, Restorative, Individualization, and Ideation. Overall I would agree with these as important attributes to my character.
ReplyDeleteLearner, this strength is definitely something I see in myself. When I read the page discussing it, I agreed with it even more when it said the person does not necessarily seek to master whatever they are learning but rather they want to learn about anything and everything, even just a little bit. This resonated with me, because in music I was required to get to a higher level of Flute playing, but my favorite pass time was not playing the flute at a higher level, but rather learning all the other instruments! Now I play Clarinet in U-Band for fun, I'm not great at it, but I love to learn!
Empathy, this is something I have been told I have my whole life and I hope it is true. When it discusses the ways people with empathy can "understand" with out maybe agreeing or pitying the person, I felt this fit me well. It is a remarkable concept that I can still see myself struggle with, but it is about the understanding of another human being which I find wonderful.
Restorative, I read the first sentence "You love to solve problems" and in my head I said "yes, yes I do." This one I find really to be true, because I get bored with routines and crave chaos on occasion. I enjoy my role as an RA because it is unpredictable and allows me to help other people in ways I could never have done if I only worked by myself. It is exciting to face a problem you know how to face, and try to find a different way to solve it as well.
Individualization, this view is something I feel like I have at once had in high school and learned to have in college. I have been known for giving great gifts to friends, and I adore the unique and odd. But I feel like I have embraced this ideology more so in college, allowing my view of the individual to widen to strangers, and let myself be more of who I am then ever.
Ideation, I had never heard this word before but it fits along the lines of my life 'fascinated by ideas.' Of course I am! Ideas are the foundation of humanities success. I really don't know what to say on this because it feels like such an obvious category that is true for life, however its on a strengths list which indicates not everyone is fascinated by them? So I guess to strengthen this one, I need to be open to the idea that idea's don't excite everyone as much as me. Like the idea that the word ideation exists!
Things I were surprised to not have were relator, includer, and harmony. Unsurprisingly all of these are closely defined with the ones I already have. A lot of my strengths are emotionally based, which may speak to my need to work on my weaknesses such as Input, Strategic, and Discipline which scream the opposite of who I am. They have a purpose and a place, and I am assuming they are close to the bottom of my list, which means they could use a little empathy from me.
My five strengths are Strategic, Ideation, Developer, Adaptability, Intellection. These strengths align pretty well with with my understanding of myself.
ReplyDeleteStrategic - It makes sense to me that this and Ideation would be my top two strengths; something I've noticed is that I approach projects and problems with a mindset that is equal parts analytical and creative. I notice this most in my writing, but in other things, too.
Ideation - Same thing as Strategic, really. I'd say that my biggest strength is seeing things for the ideas behind them and recombining or recreating those ideas in new ways, and Strategic and Ideation are the two halves of that strength.
Developer - I don't know if I'd call this strength "unexpected", but it sort of is. Like, if someone asked me my strengths before I took the test, I wouldn't necessarily have thought of this, but in hindsight it makes sense. My very favorite thing about my daycare job is watching the kids grow day by day, becoming better at life one step at a time.
Adaptability - This one I very much expected. To say that I "prefer to go with the flow" is the understatement crowning every understatement that has ever been understated in the history of humankind.
Intellection - I guess this one is also relatively unexpected, probably the most unexpected of the five. The description makes sense, but I don't know if I'd call it one of my top five strengths.
I would have expected to find Individualization or Positivity among these five. I think either of those strengths are more prominent in me than Intellection is.
My five strengths are Input, Positivity, Learner, Intellection, and Developer. These strengths fit what I was expecting, especially after having taken the test within the last few years. However, I wasn’t necessarily expecting to get the exact same five strengths this time around. I think it’s really interesting to see others’ strengths within the class and even to see some commonalities! When I took this test for the first time, it was part of a series through the AIL office, and I remember being the only one with some of the more learning-focused strengths. It’s encouraging to see some of those same strengths shared by others in this class, as well as to learn about where we’re all unique.
ReplyDeleteI was initially a bit surprised to learn that Input was my top strength. After reflecting a bit more, I realized this was pretty accurate—cleaning out my room and desk back home recently proved this point. I had things dating back to middle school that I’d saved “just in case”. I definitely think I have a tendency to collect things/stories, which can be a bit bothersome if/when I end up with more than I need, yet sometimes it can lead to exciting learning and even incorporation into a piece.
Learner is a rather self-explanatory strength, but another one I find pretty fitting for me. Some of the first books I read as a child were encyclopedias about horses (nerdy, I know). I loved the process of learning more about them. I find there are very few classes I don’t enjoy because I find the act of learning exciting in and of itself.
I am often told that I have a tendency to look on the bright side, so the Positivity strength wasn’t a huge shock for me. I enjoy working with others and I find that a positive attitude often helps things go more smoothly and enjoyably.
I wasn’t necessarily surprised by Intellection because it seems linked to Input and Learner. Again, I’ve realized that I do enjoy a mental challenge, and the act of thinking in general, which is listed as a quality of this strength. I also find that this introspection often fuels my writing.
Finally, Developer is a strength that, like Positivity, seems more linked to interpersonal skills than my more independent, learning-based strengths. I do really enjoy working with others and watching them grow, so this strength feels accurate. I spent years caring for children and, more recently, helping teach English, and in both of those situations I loved being immersed in working with others and helping them learn and develop their potential.
My five strengths were Adaptive, Intellective, Strategic, Learner, and Restorative. For the most part, my strengths aligned with what I expected them to—however, one strength that I didn’t expect to see in these top five was Strategic. I think I had a difficult time choosing between some of the options for this assessment, mostly because it wasn't the typical "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree" scale, and it challenged me to sometimes prioritize one thing over another. I thought that aspect of the assessment was interesting, and I kind of want to take it again just to see if I get the same results or if I'd choose slightly different answers.
ReplyDeleteSeeing Adaptive as my top strength was satisfying for me. I usually think of myself as a take-things-as-they-come kind of person, and this solidified it for me. I wasn’t too surprised to see it there.
Intellective was a strange strength for me to see, but I guess I’ve never thought of it as a strength before. However, the more I think about it, the more I see that I really do enjoy things that make me think harder or make me put effort into solving them.
Strategic was my surprise strength. I don’t usually tend to look for patterns or find unique ways to solve situations, and I usually take the first available path that seems like it’ll work. Not sure how I feel about this one.
Learner was pretty accurate, and Restorative was an interesting fifth to finish the top five. I tend to enjoy solving problems the most when it’s going to either help put others at ease—maybe stress-wise or emotionally—or when its a problem that other people have had trouble solving.
My five strengths were Intellection, Restorative, Ideation, Responsibility, and Deliberative.
ReplyDeleteIntellection was not a surprise. I loathe small talk and prefer to get to the heart of most matters. When I'm not talking I'm waaaaay inside my head. All the time.
Restorative makes sense to a degree. I've always been somewhat of a problem solver but I think I'd be better characterized by coping with problems, or remaining "calm under fire." When it comes to figuring out WHAT is wrong, ehhh. Depends on what IT is.
Ideation is again, not a surprise. I've always enjoyed ideas and people who have different ones. I enjoy surrounding myself with people of various religious, political and socioeconomic statuses as I believe the unity of many and diversity of opinion/belief fuels great ideas. I'm never not thinking about what I can do differently.
Responsibility is my greatest strength but also my greatest weakness. I oftentimes take on more than I know I can handle at the expense of my mental/physical health. Honesty and loyalty are certainly characteristics I am in no shortage of; that said, I have to remember that these are very exploitable strengths.
Deliberative was again, no surprise. While I appreciate spontaneity, I prefer to plan ahead. I like to think I know what's coming before it comes.
My five main strengths were Input, Empathy, Communication, Includer and Restorative. I don’t think I’m extremely surprised by the results, but I am a bit surprised about the order they were put in.
ReplyDeleteMy top was input, which is people who are collectors of “Information, ideas, artifacts, or even relationships.” This surprised me that this was my top. I don’t think I’ve really heard/thought of Input being a strength.
My second strength was empathy, which is the ability to imagine others feelings. I was not surprised to see this one on the list, though maybe not as high as it was. It’s always been ingrained in me to “put myself in someone else’s shoes” so it’s a skill (that I’m definitely still working on) but one I have quite a bit of practice using.
The third strength was communication, who “generally find it easy to put their thoughts into words.” Out of all of the strengths on the list, I was most shocked to see this one. I’ve never considered myself to be that great of a communicator. I often struggle to find the right words or get lost in thought halfway through an idea.
The fourth strength was includer. An includer is someone who is aware of those left out and tries to include them. This one does make sense to me. In the past, I have experienced what it is to be left out, so I try to be aware of when others are being excluded.
The fifth strength was restorative. People with the restorative strength are problem solvers, they are good at “figuring out what is wrong and resolving it.” I did not expect to see this one on my list but it is something I am working to be better on.