Personal SWOT analysis: your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Do you think you know yourself? Dare to face a personal SWOT analysis through which you will delve into your weaknesses, threats, strengths, and opportunities! You can approach it from a professional or personal perspective to identify areas for improvement or reinforcement. If you want to know how to develop this tool and when to apply it to get the most out of it, stay with us in this post.

What is a personal SWOT analysis?

If you’ve been working in the business world for a while, you’ve probably heard of the SWOT analysis, a method used to understand and position a company and establish a starting point from which to develop new business projection strategies. The SWOT analysis examines the company’s weaknesses, the most direct competitors that threaten its market share, the strengths it already has, and the new opportunities for growth that can be identified.

Well, when we sit down to do a personal SWOT analysis, we think along the same lines, but applied to our personal situation. That is, we reflect on our skills, shortcomings, growth opportunities, and the factors that might hinder our career. Generally, a personal SWOT analysis is carried out when we want to gain an external view of ourselves as professionals.

When should you use a personal SWOT self-assessment?

A professional life is not always as stable and upward-moving as we would like. That’s why there are times when we need to stop and rethink our future and our present to truly understand what we want, what our goals are, and how to achieve them.

In the most decisive moments, conducting a SWOT analysis can be very helpful. Below, we explain when to turn to this simple yet useful self-awareness tool.

Whether you’re a recruiter or a candidate, the SWOT analysis is very useful for recruitment processes. The interviewer can identify the strongest points of the candidates that are most appealing to the company and compare them. On the other hand, if you’re attending a job interview, the SWOT analysis will help you think about your best qualities to highlight them and successfully answer the toughest questions.

If you are in a moment of uncertainty, the SWOT will help you define goals and prioritize. You can set long-term goals, such as deciding which profession you want to pursue, or medium-term ones. Moreover, if you are an entrepreneur, it will help you evaluate the business’s potential for success and its implementation with a clear and defined direction.

Improving your professional career becomes easier when you visualize your present and future circumstances. Through self-analysis, you can detect whether your skills, aptitudes, and attitude are being properly valued by the company, and consider proposing new ideas that allow you to move up, such as taking on new challenges or reinventing yourself professionally.

And if what you want is to work as a freelancer, it’s necessary to build a strong personal brand to add value to your services and stand out from your competitors. In this sense, the SWOT analysis will help you identify which aspects can make you different.

Steps to design a personal SWOT analysis

If you are currently in a period of professional uncertainty and want to explore new horizons, taking the time to conduct a personal SWOT analysis can be very useful to redirect your career, considering all the real information you need to do so. With this method, you’ll avoid vague answers, unnecessary digressions, or basing your decisions on unrealistic scenarios.

Let’s take a look at the steps to follow to create a personal SWOT analysis:

1. Identify your strengths: make a list of your skills, knowledge, and personal qualities that make you stand out. Consider your achievements, previous experiences, and positive aspects of your personality.

• Recognize your weaknesses: reflect on the areas where you feel you have limitations or aspects you could improve. Think about your areas for development, skills you need to acquire, or personality traits that may hinder your growth.

• Analyze opportunities: examine the opportunities present in your environment. This can include factors such as the job market, current trends, training possibilities, and professional growth opportunities. Identify how you could leverage these opportunities in your favor.

• Consider threats: assess external factors that could pose a challenge or threat to your personal goals. This may include job competition, market changes, lack of resources, social barriers, or any other obstacles you may face.

• Cross-check the information: analyze how your strengths can help you take advantage of the opportunities you identified. Likewise, examine how your weaknesses might affect your ability to deal with threats. Look for ways to enhance your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses.

• Set goals and strategies: based on your SWOT analysis, define clear and realistic goals you wish to achieve. Create specific strategies to capitalize on your strengths, overcome your weaknesses, seize opportunities, and mitigate threats. Establish a detailed action plan that allows you to move toward your objectives.