Personal SWOT – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This technique was first developed as a diagnostic tool to help organisations with their strategic planning, but it can also be adapted to help individuals analyse their own careers and help to create a personal development plan.

SWOT analysis centres on gathering information about yourself to form a clear picture of who you are in a work context and where you are in terms of your career.

• If you have never done this exercise on yourself, please watch this video to learn more about how you can get the maximum effect:

• How to carry out a SWOT analysis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBOtnyt7BP4

• Read more about this technique here: https://www.mindtools.com/personalswo...

Activity – How to Use the Personal SWOT

Download and print out your copy of your personal SWOT so you can start to review and identify key skills areas that you may need in the workplace.

Start to think about your experiences, skills, and knowledge and ask for feedback from friends and colleagues to help you compile an accurate picture of where you are at present.

When completing this exercise think about the following and write them down in each section:

• Strengths: What do you do well and feel confident about? What unique resources can you draw on? What do others see as your strengths?
• Weaknesses: What could you improve or what do you dread doing? Where do you have fewer resources than others? What are others likely to see as weaknesses?
• Opportunities: What opportunities are open to you? What trends could you take advantage of? How can you turn your strengths into opportunities?
• Threats: What threats could harm you? Where are you potentially vulnerable? What are your colleagues doing? What threats do your weaknesses expose you to?

You should finish by examining how any of your current strengths could create opportunities for your career development and whether any of your current weaknesses or areas of development could lead to threats?