Self serve career coaching – Now, discover your strengths and Strength Finder 2.0

Suggestions were made to separate the self serve career coaching series to separate posts, so here’s Now, Discover your strengths and Strength Finder 2.0.  They are combined in a single post as they are very much related.  Read more below.

Marcus Buckingham
Useful for

• Those looking to find what they have to offer to the world and start finding their “calling”. The research challenges conventional wisdom on focusing on development areas and will guide you on finding where you will grow the most.
• Those that are looking for some direction on where to take their careers

Summary
The book describes strengths as a combination of your talent, skills and knowledge and provides the StrengthsFinder assessment (included with the purchase of the book) to help guide people to find where they can best make a difference.

If I were to recommend a book to start with, it would be a toss up between this one and Mindset: The new psychology of success.

My personal interactions/opinions
This book was one of the turning points for me in realizing what my calling is. Written by Marcus Buckingham, he was also working with the management consulting company I was working for, and if the company was listening to his insight than I should take a look. As I found my strengths, they pointed me to my calling as a career coach.  If you are interested, my Top 5 are Input, Maximizer, Learner, Developer, and Futuristic.  And as I have mentioned in my note for Strengths Finder, the information is a very useful tool and requires supplemental information to be completely effective.

StrengthsFinder 2.0: By the New York Times Bestselling Author of Wellbeing

Tom Rath 
Useful for
Those looking to find out a little more about the Strengths Finder tool.  The Strength themes provide you with a snapshot of where you might focus your attention in trying to find your strengths and passions.  Those who know their Strength themes and want to do more with them.

Summary
The book is more of a reference guide to the 34 strength themes found in Now, discover your strengths and provides some additional insights, information and details for those looking to explore their themes a little more deeply.  There is more information on what to do for each strength theme versus what is provided in Now.

My personal interactions/opinions
If I had to pick one of Strengths Finder 2.0 or  Now, discover your strengths, I would have just purchased Now.  A colleague of my did the test 6 years apart and his themes did change, so my thoughts are that the results are really just a snapshot versus a roadmap of what you should do with your career/life.  Still, I am still a proponent of the research and the assessment, and recommend those to take the test.  I find the results as a useful indicator although I have noticed that for those earlier in their careers, the results are not as telling as they have not yet had enough experiences to truly stabilize their strength themes, and find they do change over time.

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