Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?

Chances are, you don't. All too often, our natural talents go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.

To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced the first version of its online assessment, StrengthsFinder, in the 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book spent more than five years on the bestseller lists and ignited a global conversation, while StrengthsFinder helped millions to discover their top five talents.

This assessment is based on a 40-year study of human strengths, Gallup created a language of the 34 most common talents and developed the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment to help people discover and describe these talents. In 2001, the initial version of this assessment was included with the bestselling management book Now, Discover Your Strengths.

This well-researched instrument asks you to choose to what degree either of a set of paired statements applies to you. To use the StregthsFinder Assessment, you will first need to purchase the book, Strengths Finder 2.0, which provides an access code and costs $13 to $22, depending on bookseller. The book is a good read and will really assist you in understanding the assessment results and how you can incorporate them into your job-search.

This assessment is very robust and focuses on areas in which you have the greatest potential for strength. It is very easy and takes about 25 minutes. However, be warned that there's a 20-second limit for answering each question before it vanishes from the screen.

The online results consist of a good sized paragraph describing your five most dominant themes of talent and your signature themes. The book provides more detail on each theme.

Website: http://strengths.gallup.com

Now that you have read about Strength Finder, may we suggest that you take the next step and check out Future Proof Your Career. It is important to us that we are able to help people as they recover and prosper after job loss, so please contact us with suggestions, corrections, and even your personal experiences. If you found this article or video to be helpful, we'd love for you to share it with a friend. Also, be sure to check out all of the amazing resources for your career transition in the  ILostMyJob.com Book Store!

Thank you for your visit!