Learn about the CliftonStrengths domains
Your CliftonStrengths® aren’t a career prescription, they’re a tool for self-awareness that helps you better articulate who you are and the skills and talents you bring naturally. Start here and see suggestions for digging deeper below.
Haven’t taken CliftonStrengths or need to remember your results? UT students can access the assessment at any time.
Executing
People with dominant executing themes know how to make things happen.
Strengths in this domain: Achiever, Arranger, Belief, Consistency, Deliberative, Discipline, Focus, Responsibility, Restorative
Career-development strategies
- Self-assessment and goal-setting: Lean on your natural goal-orientation. Set clear, measurable career-exploration goals and deadlines for yourself.
- Application materials: Translate your Executing strengths into accomplishment-driven resume bullets, strong action verbs plus who/what plus why/result. Demonstrate the results of your executing strengths.
- First job transition: Use natural goal-setting and follow-through to onboard well. Set 30/60/90-day goals with your manager and track your progress.
Influencing
People with dominant influencing themes know how to take charge, speak up, and make sure the team is heard.
Strengths in this domain: Activator, Command, Communication, Competition, Maximizer, Self-Assurance, Significance, Woo
Career-development strategies
- Self-assessment and personal brand: Your strengths surface naturally in conversation. Use them to build a personal brand and sharpen your elevator pitch, what you stand for, what you bring to a team, where you want to go.
- Networking and interviewing: Influencing makes you a natural in networking rooms and interviews. Lean in by clearly articulating your career goals to your network, people want to help when they understand what you’re looking for.
- First job transition: Communicate your strengths and contributions early so your manager and teammates understand how you operate. Don’t wait to be noticed, make your work visible from the start.
Relationship Building
People with dominant relationship building themes have the ability to build strong relationships that can hold a team together and make the team greater than the sum of its parts.
Strengths in this domain: Adaptability, Connectedness, Developer, Empathy, Harmony, Includer, Individualization, Positivity, Relator
Career-development strategies
- Self-assessment with trusted people: Process your CliftonStrengths results with someone you trust, a coach, a friend, family. Ask them what they see as your strongest patterns.
- Networking, authentic, not transactional: Your strengths make networking genuine, not forced. Frame your story around relationship-building, invest in long-term connections over transactions.
- First job transition: Invest early in coworker relationships. Collaborate to learn your role faster. Your strengths help you understand teammates’ perspectives and build cohesive teams.
Strategic Thinking
People with dominant strategic thinking themes help teams consider what could be. They absorb and analyze information that can inform better decisions.
Strengths in this domain: Analytical, Context, Futuristic, Ideation, Input, Intellection, Learner, Strategic
Career-development strategies
- Self-assessment, gather data systematically: Your strengths help you excel at information-gathering and processing. Research potential careers, industries, and employers the same way you’d approach any analytical problem, gather data, identify patterns, and draw conclusions.
- Application materials: Your research instinct gives you an edge on company-specific cover letters and interview prep. Go deeper than most candidates, understand the organization’s strategy, challenges, and culture before you apply.
- First job transition: Use your big-picture thinking to map the organization and identify where you can add the most value. Share your perspective early, your strategic lens is an asset, not something to wait to surface.
Do this next
Now that you’ve considered your leading strength domain, the next step is to put your individual strengths to work. Dig deeper to consider how your CliftonStrengths can inform your major or career exploration, examine networking strategies to grow your network, or schedule a coaching conversation to talk through what fits you.
Explore your individual strengths
See career exploration strategies
Go deeper by domain
Exploration strategies by domain
Use your strengths to choose how to explore careers. Let’s look at how you might approach career exploration differently based on your CliftonStrengths.
Networking tips by CliftonStrengths domain
Networking doesn’t have to feel forced. See how to grow your network in a way that fits your individual strengths.
Want to talk through your strengths?
Schedule a coaching conversation to talk about how your CliftonStrengths fit into your career direction and search strategies. A coach can help you translate your top five into a clear next step.
Career Coaching & Education
Center for Career Development & Academic Exploration
201 Student Union, 1502 Cumberland Ave, Knoxville, TN 37996
865-974-5435