Understanding yourself is key to building sustainable career goals and supporting long-term career growth for all employees. Knowing your personal values, career interests, individual personality, and unique skill set helps you develop your UW–Madison career goals, communicate them to mentors and leadership, and build your long-term career and professional development plan.
Values are the motivations that give meaning to our work. Knowing what our values are is a key step in identifying jobs and work spaces that would fit us. Often it is easier to understand values by looking at where they are not—behaviors we find unpleasant, decisions we disagree with, or choices we struggle to make. Ask yourself, “Why do I feel this way about this behavior/decision/choice?” This can help to identify and communicate the value that is being triggered.
Need more help? Value Assessments
Career interests describe the kind of work we do—beyond tasks or job titles. Ask yourself, “What words would I use to describe the work I enjoy doing?” Knowing our interests helps us group potential job titles and tasks into career interest areas that can better direct our next steps as we grow.
Need more help? Onet Interest Profiler & Interest Assessments
UW–Madison has developed a knowledges and skills hub derived by the U.S. Department of Labor. The knowledges and skills hub is connected to approximately 1,100 standard job descriptions sourced from the Title and Standard Job Description Library. The hub aims to help employees identify areas for professional growth to remain relevant in their career industry.
The knowledges and skills hub is a user-friendly platform that connects employees to knowledges and skills resources. Some resources featured on the hub include UW–Madison courses, trainings, and LinkedIn Learning courses. Employees can use these resources as a roadmap to explore relevant learning materials tailored to their job titles. Professional development resources can also be found on the knowledges and skills hub.
To access these resources, employees can utilize the following search options:
- Browse the full list of knowledges and skills.
- Refine your search by utilizing filters to sort by keyword, job group, or job subgroup.
- Explore the Title and Standard Job Description Library.
Explore Opportunities
Occupational Information
Pursue New Roles on Campus
UW–Madison Mentor Programs and Network Programs
Connecting to a mentor can help you better understand your values, personality and skills as well as help find opportunities to grow on campus.