Identify your strengths How to identify your strengths: To get a job or a promotion, you need to know your strengths. If you can't articulate them, you can't expect your boss or potential employer to either. Here's a four-step process to identifying what makes you great:

(1) List your strengths. Include skills and knowledge you've acquired through experience and education as well as softer intrinsic strengths, such as insightfulness or empathy.

(2) Ask for input. Ask colleagues for honest feedback.

(3) Revisit past feedback. Reread old performance reviews and reflect on past mentoring sessions.

(4) Modify your list. Adjust your original list to reflect what you've learned. Make sure the strengths are specific so that they are credible and useful.

Time for a promotion?

So you've been with your company a while, you're achieving the goals set by your manager but also by yourself and you're ready for the next step? But how do you get there? How do you take the leap and secure your promotion and how do you ensure your manager is singing from the same hymn sheet?

First, a little self-analysis. For many of us, an inflated opinion of your capabilities is second nature. How many times have we uttered the sentence I can do that in my sleep or they don't realise how lucky they are to have me? And sometimes these statements may be true but how do you qualify them without looking arrogant? Look at your job role and split it into responsibilities and tasks.

Now, analyse each aspect with strengths and weaknesses. What do you do well, what could you improve upon? This will generally be included in your past years review so take that as your starting point and build on it. In order to gain promotion you need to be able to prove your worth and substantiate it.

Your strengths don't always have to be work related. Your personality can be the tipping point in what makes you achieve. A friendly professional manor with customers can count as much, if not more than submitting your purchase orders on time. All aspects of you as a person affect your ability to do your job well and these should not be overlooked.

Once you've rated yourself, for want of a better word, then talk to a colleague who can give you their trusted and honest opinion on your performance. Once you've received this, compare it to your own. You may find you have been too harsh on yourself in some areas and identify weaknesses in others that you couldnât see.

Finally, review your list, combine your feedback and set up a plan for success. Then, present it to your manager. Don't expect the meeting to be easy, challenging questions and feedback cannot always be what you were expecting, but they can be the tipping point in securing your goal of promotion.