The basics

The NHS Medical Careers website offers a number of self-assessment tools to help you understand more about yourself, and make informed decisions about your post-foundation career. You’ve already made a vital career decision in choosing to train as a doctor. Self-assessment continues this decision-making process by helping you discover your personal skills, values and interests, so you can consider how they might suit the many specialties available to you.

Self-assessment tests and exercises can’t tell you precisely which speciality you should pursue, and it is important to remember that choosing a career takes time. The NHS Medical Careers website has been designed in short, simple sections to fit with the demands of your undergraduate and foundation programme schedule, and it’s recommended you start using it as soon as you can. It will be a constant source of knowledge and support in helping you choose the best specialty for you, and enjoy a rewarding career as a doctor in the NHS.

What is self-assessment?

Self-assessment is the process of gathering and understanding information about yourself. Learning about yourself is, of course, the task of a lifetime, but it’s also the essential first step in the career development process. It involves analysing your interests, values, personality and skills to work out what you want from your medical career. At the end of the analysis, the goal is to find specialties that synchronise with as many of your personal attributes as possible.

Why take self-assessments?

A thorough self-assessment can reveal many of your personal characteristics and help define your strengths and weaknesses. Taking the time to identify and understand your preferences and skills will help guide your exploration into the many different specialty options available to you. Looking for similarities between these characteristics, and the demands of the specialties you are considering is an essential element of your career planning. In addition, the clearer you are about yourself, and the specialty you eventually apply for, the easier you will find it to write application forms and answer questions at interview. 

When you come to apply for jobs, completing these self-assessment exercises in sufficient details will help you construct clear, credible answers on your written application forms, and also help you prepare how to answer the sorts of questions that will be posed at interview. This is because of the quality of your career decision making will be thoroughly scrutinised in the application process, and you need to demonstrate that you have carried out adequate self-assessment (stage 1), and thorough career exploration (stage 2).

When should I complete my self-assessments?

Throughout medical school and the first year of postgraduate training you may feel vocational planning can wait, but it’s wise to consider your future career sooner rather than later. At the very latest, you should start seriously thinking about career planning in your penultimate year of your medical degree. Acquaint yourself with the NHS Medical Careers website, and take a look at the self-assessment exercises as soon as possible. Exactly when you start completing them is up to you. You may even want to complete them more than once, as your answers may well change as you progress through your undergraduate and postgraduate training.