The Gallups strength assessment costs $15 and provides you with your top five personal strengths. Our VP of member development, Kseniya, explains that by simply knowing your strengths, you will be able to develop and improve upon them. She urges you to take the assessment early on at your time at Baruch to ensure that you will have time to focus on them and develop.
An astounding 13 million people have taken this assessment throughout the world. You may be asking yourself “Why would I want to know my strengths?” and “What can I do with that information?”. Knowing what you are good at will allow you to succeed in the workplace. During an interview, you will be able to say what you can contribute as an employee. This is a powerful tool that will help you stand out. How you express your strengths is unique and can be supported by examples. The MD committee explains that your winning formula may be someone else’s losing formula. Knowing your strengths can also boost your self esteem, increase your confidence, and lead to a more productive life.
Focusing on your strengths rather than your weaknesses will, believe it or not, lead to greater results. Think of someone that you look up to and gather inspiration from. Whoever that may be, that individual must have been or is great because he/she utilized their strengths to succeed. You can always improve by some amount on your weaknesses, but by focusing on your strengths, Kseniya says that it will lead to exponential growth. That role model you were previously thinking about went from ordinary to extraordinary by doing exactly this.
The assessment also provides you with a thorough explanation of each strength and how to use each one. There are four categories of strengths: executing, influencing, relating, and thinking strengths. You may be skeptical of the assessment’s accuracy, as I was initially, but it is important to remember that it is very rare that two people have the same five strengths in the same order. The committee explains that there are a total of 34 strengths and the odds of two people having the same strengths in the same order is one in 33 million. With results as personalized as these, you can be certain that the assessment is worth your time. The assessment aims to find what you are naturally good at by allowing you a specific amount of time to answer each question. If you spend more time than what is allowed, the assessment continues on to the next question.
You may be tempted to focus on your weaknesses because they incite fear and uncertainty. However, the Gallups assessment will teach you to dedicate yourself to what is really important by focusing on your strengths instead. It is crucial to know yourself and keep your strengths in mind throughout your time at Baruch. Kseniya explains that taking this assessment will not do you any good if you just forget about your results. She wants us to apply our strengths to our everyday lives. The MD committee leaves us to think about the roles that we want to take on in the future, the strengths required to succeed in those roles, and how our personal strengths can help us in taking on these roles. Remember, your strengths are only as good as your willingness to understand and utilize them!
If you’re a student at Baruch, it is highly likely that you have heard about the Gallups strength assessment and may have taken it already. Perhaps, you have even heard about it in the professional world and were required to take it by your employer. There is a reason why so many of us are recommended to take this assessment: it is an invaluable tool that will help you academically, personally, and professionally.