A Quick Guide To Personal SWOT Analysis With Examples

7 min readSep 15, 2022

How often have you faced the dreaded question in an interview: What are your weaknesses? The reason many people find this question intimidating is that they worry it leaves the door open for inference about them and extrapolates this as a risk that no one wants in an interview.

A way to answer this question

When you think a bit deeper, any weakness never stands on its own. It usually is a side effect of a strength that you carry, representing an opportunity. For example, a tendency to micromanage is hidden in a natural strength of an underlying rigor, a concern about getting things right, and a desire to have your people succeed. Strengths and opportunities should always counterbalance your weaknesses to project your personality in a wholesome way while positioning yourself positively. Doing so also reveals a lot about your self-awareness and maturity- which can be a big differentiator in a competitive recruiting situation. So how do you prepare yourself for such an exchange? The answer is to create a personality swot!

What Is A Personal SWOT Analysis?

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A personal SWOT Analysis is a great way to organize, prioritize, plan, and communicate your personal and professional development goals. It is a story that you tell about yourself. Backing up statements with examples, or involving one or two external opinions, is a great way to tell this story.

How To Start A SWOT Analysis Of Yourself?

For starters, it is worth setting aside some quiet time to reflect and introspect to create a SWOT analysis for yourself. Starting early and giving yourself time is a good idea since it’s hard to create a coherent story about yourself when you are crunched for time Based on your performance reviews and appraisals, you might already have a ton of data points about yourself. If so, take the time to browse through that material and gather themes. In case you are at relatively early stages in your career, find a colleague or friend you trust, get into a quiet room, and ask them their opinion. Better still, if there are a couple of people you trust, get a second person’s opinion for a complete picture. Let’s begin a swot self analysis for an individual. First, separate your diagram into four sections. See SWOT Analysis PowerPoint Template collection for great templates that can give you perfect starting points. In this blog, you will also see some actual personal swot examples to get inspiration from.

First, Your Weaknesses

This is where you should start! Surprised? But here is why it might make sense. Weakness is a great place to start since it helps clarify thinking by focusing on your vulnerabilities and makes you feel more human. This also gives fodder for thinking deeply about and framing your strengths since strengths are often the flip side of your weakness. Besides, many of us tend to be overly self-critical and may have our self-improvement ideas ready-made in our minds. Remember thinking of your weaknesses doesn’t have to be a soul-crushing exercise. Even CEOs of companies are on a self-improvement journey; knowledge of one’s weaknesses is a testament to one’s self-awareness. Here are some personal swot analysis examples about yourself:

For example, do you struggle to speak amongst dominating individuals?
Do you need to brush up on your public speaking?
Do you worry too much about deliverables?
Do you have a fear of failure?
Do you seek too much consensus?
Are there functional skills that are missing from your toolkit?

These are just ideas and concrete self personal swot analysis sample questions that may help you frame yours. If any of these resonate, please feel free to borrow them.

Then, Your Strengths

Believe it or not, some of us really struggle with this. The question people get trapped in is: What am I really good at? How do I know my strengths are really what others will value? Let me break it to you folks: don’t overthink this- keep it simple. Here are a few tips to get you started with your personal swot analysis.

Think of everything you excel at, including specialist skills and knowledge that benefit the organization.
Recall your key achievements, including successful projects and campaigns, and think about what made that work. For example, how well you communicated, how well you delegated; your functional strengths, and your ability to strike relationships
What other personal behaviors have held you in good stead? For example, are you calm under pressure? Are you great with people? A patient listener?

These are ideas and concrete personal swot analysis sample questions that may help you frame yours. If any of these resonate, please feel free to borrow them.

Your difficulty to speak amongst dominating individuals can show that you want to remain calm and not add to the heat individuals can cause. In those situations, you try and find another way to express yourself.
Worrying too much about deliverables can come from a concern about ensuring organizational success. It just causes personal stress but relieves organizational stress.
You are seeking too much consensus comes from your wanting to be inclusive. It can cause delays but creates more robust outcomes.

Be sure to pepper this section with a few of these types of strengths to round off your weaknesses.

Then, Think About Your Opportunities

The opportunity space is a topic that deals with how your persona can create an impact on business, projects, people, etc. This is where you take your personal story and extend it to the external impact. Here are a few ideas to get you started-

For example, if you are good at say Project Management, it can open up opportunities for you to create an impact in any field by your ability to work in a structured manner.
Your ability to go with people can go a long way in generating camaraderie and positive energy. Those are essential ingredients for robust leadership skills.
Your remaining calm under pressure can create opportunities to work in many situations involving a lack of structure and stress.

Last but not the least, Your Threats

Are any of your peers holding you back? Is there someone on the team who is making your job harder? How could you approach this problem constructively?
Compare yourself to your peers. Are you being overshadowed by a more vocal or ambitious colleague? What can you do about it?
Are there new processes or technologies pushing the industry forward, and your lack of training means you’re trailing behind? Think about how you can fix this.

The threats section is all about personal awareness and your forward-looking mindset. So make the most of this section. If you have examples to back these claims up, then all the better. And remember, these examples don’t necessarily need to be actions performed in the workplace. Don't keep it to yourself if you did something awesome like rescue a puppy on the road!

What are the Personal SWOT Analysis Examples?

A swot personal example of a Digital Marketer:

Individuals do a SWOT self analysis to assess their own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Amongst a wide range of Self SWOT Analysis example, the one below shows an Individual SWOT Analysis example of a digital marketing professional.

From the below example of a personal swot analysis template, digital marketers can gain a deeper understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, identify opportunities for growth and development, and be prepared to tackle any potential threats. This information can be used to set goals and make a plan for advancing their career in digital marketing.

Personal swot analysis examples for students:

The personal SWOT analysis template provided below helps students better understand their strengths and weaknesses, identify opportunities for growth and development, and prepare them to tackle any potential challenges as they work towards their personal and academic goals. This information can be used to set goals, develop action plans, and make informed decisions about their future. We recommend that every student should follow this Self SWOT Analysis example to reflect inwards on their growth journey to achieve superior results.

Personal swot analysis example for a company:

1) When thinking about the Strengths of a company, refer to the skills and experiences that the company possesses, such as a strong brand reputation, a loyal customer base, or innovative technology.

2) When brainstorming weaknesses, refer to areas where the company may need to improve, such as inefficient internal processes, a lack of diversity in the workforce, or outdated technology.

3) Opportunities for a company refer to the potential for growth and development within the company, such as expanding into new markets, acquiring complementary businesses, or launching new products.

4) Threats refer to potential challenges the company may face, such as increased competition, changes in consumer behavior, or economic downturns.

By conducting this personal SWOT analysis example, a company can gain a deeper understanding of its strengths and weaknesses, identify opportunities for growth and development, and be prepared to tackle any potential challenges.

You can put your personal swot analysis in different ways shown below:

Final thoughts

Personal SWOT analysis is a great way to tell your story and communicate your whole persona to the interviewer. Done well, this can help differentiate you in a competitive pool with robust self-awareness and open-mindedness.

Originally published at https://slideuplift.com on September 15, 2022.