How to Use Your Strengths in Your Career
Why Career Alignment Matters
When your career aligns with your natural talents, work becomes more than just a job—it becomes a source of energy, fulfillment, and excellence. Research shows that people who use their strengths daily are six times more likely to be engaged in their work and three times more likely to report having an excellent quality of life.
Your StrengthsFinder results provide a roadmap to career satisfaction by highlighting the activities and environments where you'll naturally excel and find the most fulfillment.
Understanding Your Strengths in a Career Context
Each of the 34 talent themes manifests differently in professional settings. Understanding how your specific talents operate in the workplace is the first step toward leveraging them effectively:
Executing Talents at Work
These strengths help you get things done and deliver results:
- Achiever: Thrives in roles with clear metrics and accomplishments
- Discipline: Excels in structured environments with established processes
- Focus: Effective in goal-oriented positions with clear priorities
- Responsibility: Trusted with important deadlines and deliverables
Influencing Talents at Work
These strengths help you make an impact and lead others:
- Communication: Effective in roles requiring explanation, persuasion, or presentation
- Command: Natural in leadership positions requiring decisive action
- Woo: Excels in networking, sales, and relationship-building roles
- Maximizer: Thrives in quality-focused positions where excellence is valued
Relationship Building Talents at Work
These strengths help you create strong teams and collaborative environments:
- Empathy: Valuable in customer service, counseling, and team support roles
- Harmony: Effective in conflict resolution and team coordination
- Developer: Excels in mentoring, coaching, and talent development positions
- Relator: Builds deep, productive relationships with colleagues and clients
Strategic Thinking Talents at Work
These strengths help you analyze information and plan for the future:
- Analytical: Essential in data-driven roles requiring critical thinking
- Strategic: Valuable in planning, innovation, and problem-solving positions
- Learner: Thrives in rapidly evolving fields requiring continuous education
- Ideation: Creative in roles requiring innovation and new approaches
Practical Strategies for Applying Your Strengths
1. Identify Strength-Based Roles
Look for positions where your top talents would be utilized daily. For example, someone with strong Communication and Woo talents might thrive in sales, while someone with strong Analytical and Strategic talents might excel in data analysis or strategic planning.
2. Reframe Your Current Role
Even in your current position, you can find ways to incorporate more strength-based activities. Volunteer for projects that align with your talents, or suggest process improvements that leverage your natural abilities.
3. Develop a Strengths Vocabulary
Learn to articulate your strengths in interviews, performance reviews, and team meetings. Instead of saying "I'm good with people," explain "My Relator talent helps me build deep, productive relationships with clients."
4. Create Strength-Based Goals
Set professional development goals that specifically target the further development of your signature strengths, rather than focusing exclusively on improving weaknesses.
Overcoming Career Challenges with Your Strengths
Common Career Challenges
- Feeling disengaged or unmotivated at work
- Struggling to meet performance expectations
- Difficulty advancing in your career
- Conflict with colleagues or managers
- Burnout and exhaustion
Strength-Based Solutions
- Seek roles that better align with your natural talents
- Find ways to apply your strengths to overcome performance gaps
- Position yourself for advancement using your unique abilities
- Use relationship-building strengths to improve workplace dynamics
- Balance your work to include more energizing, strength-based activities
When you understand your strengths, you can reframe career challenges as opportunities to apply your natural talents in new ways.
Career Transitions and Strengths
Your strengths remain constant even as your career evolves. Understanding them can guide successful transitions:
Changing Industries
Focus on transferable strengths rather than specific industry experience. Your Analytical talent is valuable whether you're in finance, healthcare, or technology.
Advancing to Leadership
There's no single "leadership strength"—different leadership styles leverage different talent combinations. An Activator leader moves quickly, while a Developer leader focuses on growing team members.
Entrepreneurship
Successful entrepreneurs often build teams that complement their strengths. If you're strong in Ideation but weaker in Discipline, partner with someone who excels at implementation.
Career Pivots
Use your strengths as a compass when considering new directions. They indicate where you'll find natural energy and satisfaction regardless of the specific field.
Building a Strengths-Based Career Plan
Create a personalized career development plan centered around your strengths:
- Assessment: Identify your top 5-10 talent themes and understand how they manifest in work settings
- Alignment: Evaluate your current role and identify opportunities to better utilize your strengths
- Development: Create specific actions to further develop your signature strengths
- Application: Intentionally apply your strengths to current projects and responsibilities
- Advancement: Identify future roles and career paths that would leverage your natural talents
Discover Your Career Strengths
The first step to building a strengths-based career is understanding your unique talent combination. Our free assessment will help you identify your signature strengths and provide guidance on how to apply them in your professional life.