Thanks to Sharon Maguire.
As a PhD student you may well be juggling your research with teaching commitments, as well as involvement in the wider life of your department. Sometimes it can seem as if there is just too much to do so what can help you?
The Careers Service subscribes to some tools that can help students consider how they manage the different demands on their time effectively. They are a series of career assessments covering topics such as: temperament, personality insight, motivation at work, personal resilience, strengths , giving feedback, stress management, assertiveness, learning styles, and more. They’re all very simple to complete and you can choose only to complete the exercises that interest you. They can give you an insight into your strengths, what motivates you, how you like to communicate and interact, and your approach to learning and decision-making. Awareness of some of these areas can help you to consider how you work best and how to get the best out of your interactions with others.
I’ve copied some fuller descriptions of just a few of the assessments below, but you can view them all by choosing career assessments from the drop down resources tab on MyCareerhub.
Some fuller descriptions…….
Assertiveness: This will help you to understand how you interact with others and which behaviours you rely on in the workplace (assertive, passive or aggressive). At the end you’ll also get tips on how to be more assertive and how to reduce passive and aggressive behaviours.
Personal resilience: Find out how resilient you are and what influences how you experience stress? A person’s resilience is about their ability to bounce back from difficulties, to bend, but not break under extreme stress. You will consider areas such as coping with change; problem solving; self-confidence; and support networks. You’ll get tips and techniques you can use to help you maintain and develop your levels of resilience.
Temperament: This is about the way you like to communicate and interact with others; what type of information you enjoy and trust; your approach to making decisions; and how you like to live your life. You’ll develop an insight into your own temperament which can help you to understand and appreciate how others differ from you; and can be useful when considering how comfortable you may be in different work roles or environments.
Image: CC0; by GDJ on Pixabay
