Self-Reflection

Taking time to think about who you are, what your qualities and skills are, what you are looking for and from which aspects you gain energy is the first step in the process of exploring your career. By self-reflecting, you gain more insight about yourself. These insights provide clarity and focus.

What is Self-reflection?

Self-reflection (also known as “personal reflection”) is taking the time to think about, meditate on, evaluate, and give serious thought to your behaviors, thoughts, attitudes, motivations, and desires. It’s the process of diving deep into your thoughts and emotions and motivations and determining the great, “Why?” behind them. It allows you to analyze your life from both a macro and micro level. At a macro level, you can evaluate the overall trajectory of your life. You can see where you’re headed, determine whether you’re happy with the direction, and make adjustments as necessary. At a micro level, you can evaluate your responses to particular circumstances and events.

How to self-reflect?

To gain more insight about yourself, the following four main questions are the starting point. Answering them provides clarity and focus.

Who am I?

Knowing who you are is reflecting on the past. What shaped you? Who influenced you? What decisions did you make? Visualizing the life you lived up until today is a way to discover more about yourself. The Life Lines (download) is a proven method in (career)coaching to reflect on your life so far.

What am I good at?

Core qualities

It is good to know what you are good at, and what your pitfalls are. The Core Quadrant (download), founded by Daniel Ofman, helps to find out more about your core qualities and your pitfalls. In a short video, he explains how this quadrant works. Asking others feedback on yourself, may reinforce the qualities you have, but can also reveal your blind spots and show points to develop. It is ok to not be good at everything and to include this in your navigation manual. 360 degree feedback is therefore a useful way to complete the self-reflection.

Skills

Qualities are given by nature, skills are nurtured. So, what are the skills you learned throughout life so far; during your study, during volunteer work, during sports or hobby’s or elsewhere?

We divide hard skills (it skills, languages, lab skills, etc.) and soft skills – or personal skills (organising, planning, communicating, etc.). You can develop these skills through education, extracurricular activities and side jobs or other work.

For your career, it is important to know what skills you are good at and/or what skills you want to learn more about.

Here, you can find an overview of important skills and where you can go in Wageningen to learn more skills.

What career do I want?

Once you have reflected on all these topics, you can start thinking about where to work. Not every organisation will be a perfect fit.

Here are some things to keep in mind while you start searching:

  • Size of the company; a big corporate or a start-up?
  • An informal or more formal culture?
  • NGO, governmental or commercial?
  • International or local?
  • Working in a team or working more independently? Knowing more about your performance within a team is helpful. The Belbin Test will reveal your role in a team.

How do I get the job?

Once you completed the self-reflection, it is time to find that job and start the search process. Time to update your CV, your LinkedIn profile and brand yourself in a way that describes you best! Start broadening your network, if not already done so. Start looking for job descriptions that match with your qualities, your skills, your values. Create a personal motivation letter and if required, practice a mock interview. We can help you in landing that job or internship that fits you! We offer a variety of tips, career events and personal career advice to help you.

Next step

Knowing who you are and what will be your next step after graduation is not only about the academic knowledge you gained at Wageningen University & Research. It is about the complete package that makes your personality unique. Once you combine your academic rigor – your professional development – together with your personal traits, you will create a stable foundation to take the next step to enter the labour market.

Once personal and professional development go hand in hand together, you are well prepared for that next step. You will become more aware about who you are and what talents and ambitions you have. This way, you can gear yourself into the direction that will fit you best.

Additional info

Inspiration for self-reflection

There are many videos and books in which you can get inspiration for your own career. We made a selection of these (download), which you might find helpful for your self-reflection.

Ways to assess yourself

Personal and professional development

You can further develop yourself with a variety of activities.

Personality tests

A personality test gives you the chance to get to know yourself better. You can use it for your career planning and your personal and professional development. Our recommendations:

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) / 16 personalities

Designed to identify a person's personality type (out of 16 personality types), strengths, and preferences.

Big Five

One of the most well-known frameworks for understanding our personalities and how we respond to the world around us. The theory distinguishes five dimensions of your personality: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

Belbin team roles

Identifies behavioural strengths and weaknesses in the workplace. Knowing a person's specific team role helps to ensure that individuals and teams communicate and work together with greater understanding.

Holland’s RIASOC

According to John Holland's theory, careers are determined by an interaction between personality and environment. Holland's RIASOC test identifies a person's personality out of 6 different personality types.

Strengthsfinder

Explains the ways a person naturally thinks, feels and behaves. The insights help to feel more engaged at work and be more productive.

DISC

Used to gain insights on the way you work and communicate, and how to communicate with others more effectively.