In a SWOT Analysis, strengths are written in the top left quadrant. They highlight the internal strengths that you or your organization might be able to take advantage of to meet your goals.
Examples of strengths for a SWOT analysis might include motivation, a clear vision, or having strong prior knowledge.
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SWOT Analysis Strength Examples for Students and Individuals
Motivated, goal-oriented, integrity, team player, leadership skills.
- I am a highly motivated person who can wake up every day with the intrinsic desire to work on my goals.
- I am highly goal-oriented and can break down my goals into manageable short-term tasks to create a clear path to success.
- I have integrity. I can be trusted to do the right thing even when it doesn’t advantage me personally.
- I am a team player. I can communicate, collaborate and compromise on group tasks to get the job done.
- I am a strong leader. For me, leadership skills are about supporting a team of people and getting the best out of everyone while focussing on a common goal.
Writing skills, research skills, intelligence, open-mindedness, gregariousness.
- I have great writing skills. I usually do well in essays and am confident communicating in writing.
- I have good research skills. If you give me a computer, I can usually dig around until I find the information I need.
- I know I am an intelligent person. I can hold my own in a conversation on academic topics.
- I am open-minded. I can usually see things from multiple perspectives and am ready to learn from others.
- I am gregarious, which means I’m good with social interactions. This gives me strong social capital that I can leverage to achieve mt goals.
Confidence, conscientiousness, communication skills, listening skills, approachability.
- I am generally a confident person with the self-belief that I’ll be able to achieve the goals I’ve set for myself.
- I am highly conscientious. I usually complete my tasks thoroughly and won’t stop until it’s done.
- I have strong communication skills. I know how to communicate with people in a way that resolves disputes and often ends with everyone getting a bit of what they want.
- I have good listening skills. I’ll actually listen to someone and respond to them by incorporating their unique concerns in my response.
- I’m very approachable. People tend to find me likable and non-threatening which helps me in social situations.
Resourcefulness, reliability, convincing, organizational skills.
- I am resourceful. I know how to use my wits and what’s around me to get things done. I’ll also often try to find my own way using the resources around me before asking for help.
- I know how to seek help when necessary rather than suffer in silence. This can help me move through plateaus where I struggle to achieve my goals.
- I am a reliable person. I can be trusted to do things that I say I will do and I will always turn up on time.
- I think I am quite a convincing person. I can use evidence and facts to get people to come around to my point of view.
- I have excellent organizational skills which can help me to achieve my goals. I can organize both myself and my teams by sorting our documents and ensuring everything is orderly and easy to access.
Time management, preparedness, adaptability, empathy, compassion, genuineness.
Read Also: 19 Respectfulness Examples
- I have excellent time management skills. I can usually plan in advance to make sure I meet my goals with time to spare.
- I am always prepared and will think ahead to make sure I have everything I need for any event.
- I am adaptable to changes in events and timelines. This makes me a good team member and very good at achieving most goals I set myself.
- I am an empathetic person which makes me great when working with others or in a team. I can usually see other people’s points of view and want to help out.
- I am a compassionate person. I will show concern for others who are in need.
Genuineness, creative thinking, positive outlook, respectfulness, persistence.
- I am a genuine person and a good friend. People can rely on me to do things out of the goodness of my heart if I think I will be of value.
- I am a creative thinker which helps me to come up with ways to meet my goals that are out of the ordinary.
- I have a generally positive outlook on things. I will seek the upside and try to focus on maximizing the positives out of most situations.
- I am respectful of people around me, including teachers and team members. This helps me work well with others.
- I am persistent and will not give up. If I have a goal, I will work toward it until it’s achieved.
Ethical, critical thinker, resilience, action taker, ambition.
- I am an ethical person. I always have my eye on the truth and will not let people sway me into doing things I don’t think are right.
- I am a critical thinker. I will look at things from all angles and try to identify strengths and weaknesses in order to find the best path forward.
- I am resilient and know I can bounce back from setbacks on my path to success.
- I am an action taker and won’t sit around and procrastinate. Rather, I will try things out and then adapt, iterate, and improve when it doesn’t work.
- I am ambitious which gives me the motivation to wake up and get to work every day. This ambition can help me achieve my goals through hardship (see also: examples of how to demonstrate ambition).
Enthusiasm, thoughtfulness, honesty, technology skills, willingness to work.
- I am an enthusiastic worker. I tend to go all-in on projects and get very excited about working on them.
- I believe one of my greatest traits is my thoughtfulness. I don’t have rash decision-making processes and don’t make off-the-cuff remarks.
- I’m always honest. My honesty makes me a good team member and someone who can be relied upon.
- I have strong technology skills. The goal might require the use of technology and I’m sure I’ll be able to complete that element with ease.
- I am always willing to learn. Even though I don’t have the skills yet to meet my goals, I know I can learn them with some effort.
Strong prior knowledge, focusing on tasks, flexibility, realistic, helpful.
- I have strong prior knowledge about the topic so I will be able to achieve my stated goals if I only put my mind to it.
- I am good at focusing on tasks. I can put aside distractions and work on a job until it is done.
- I am flexible to other people’s needs and am usually happy to make changes to accommodate others.
- I am realistic and generally only set goals I know I can meet.
- I am a helpful person. I always want to go out of my way to see other people succeed.
Analytical, problem-solver, balanced, pragmatic.
- I am analytical. If I’m given a task, I will analyze it and break it down into its parts so I can identify ways to achieve my goals. This was a great academic strength when I was a student.
- I am a very good problem-solver. If I am faced with a problem, I will instantly get to work thinking about what’s needed to get over this new hurdle.
- I am generally balanced in my assessments of things. I try not to let bias guide my thinking. Instead, I will see both sides of a story and try to identify a pragmatic way forward.
- I am a pragmatic thinker. I won’t let ideology or personal self-interest get in the way of achieving progress. This makes me a good team worker and problem solver.
- I am highly competitive. While this could be a disadvantage, I also see it as an advantage because friendly competition motivates me to try harder.
Self-control, cooperation, tolerance, courageousness, attentiveness.
- I have strong self-control which is really useful for achieving this goal because it can keep me focused on what I need to do.
- I am a really cooperative person which can help me in this teamwork task.
- I am very tolerant of different perspectives which can be really in team and customer-focused settings.
- I am courageous and will willingly go for goals that are lofty and hard to achieve.
- I am attentive to others which will help me because I’ll need to pay attention and learn a lot to achieve this goal.
Carefulness, frugality, mindfulness, passion, purpose.
- I am really careful which will hopefully help me meet this goal because I don’t take unnecessary risks.
- I am a frugal person so I’ll be able to achieve the goals without blowing the budget.
- I am very mindful of the people around me and will take into consideration their thoughts and feelings.
- I am passionate about this goal and know I will give it my all.
- I am purposeful and believe fully in meeting this goal.
Conservativeness, supportiveness, support network, humility, self-belief.
- I am generally conservative in setting goals and don’t take risks so I think I’ll be able to achieve the goal I’ve set.
- I am supportive of others. If someone comes to me for encouragement, I’ll always be there to give it.
- I have built a great support network that will have my back through thick and thin.
- I am undeterred by detractors who simply motivate me to work even harder than ever before.
- I am humble, which I think is a personal strength because it means I don’t get arrogant and lose track of what it takes to succeed.
- I have very strong self-belief. I will put my head down and work hard until I convince the people around me to also believe I am capable of anything.
Related: Weakness Examples for a SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis Strength Examples for an Interview
Motivated, reliable, knowledgeable, team player, hard-working.
- I know I would be a motivated employee given my career goals. I am eager to impress and find ways to help solve problems for your company.
- Above all, my top strength is my reliability. I do what I say I will do and I make sure I do it in a timely manner. I find incomplete and late tasks to be frustrating.
- I am knowledgeable and can bring a lot of my past knowledge and experience to this role. I think I could integrate well with the team and help them move forward through current roadblocks within your business.
- I am a team player, by which I mean I’m flexible, not dogmatic, and willing to look for practical paths forward where each team member has an important role to play in a collaborative process.
- I am extremely hard working, as reflected in my college GPA and the references I can provide from past employers.
Motivated, reliable, knowledgeable, team player, hard-working.
- I will be above all a problem-solver. If I’m presented with problems or obstacles, I will approach you with a range of suggested solutions to show I’ve not only identified problems but found ways to move past them.
- I am a process-oriented thinker, meaning I always try to find ways to alleviate roadblocks, hurdles, and the burden of time from the team. I see my role as being able to solve the bottlenecks that an organization faces so it can grow.
- I value quality and exceptionalism in my work. I don’t aim to be ‘good enough’ but rather I want to help your brand be the best it can be.
- I am consistent in what I do. I will continue to deliver results at a high level over time because I take pride in my work.
- I know businesses need employees who are practical, and I commit myself to that. I seek incremental ways to improve that I know are achievable and within my locus of control.
Related: Opportunity Examples for a SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis Strength Examples for Businesses and Organizations
Clear plan, early adopter, creative, youthful and energetic, expertise.
- We have a very clear business plan and business strategy so we know exactly where the company is headed.
- We have a highly motivated team that comes to work each day with a desire to achieve success (e.g. our human resources are strong).
- We have an early adopter advantage. We beat most of our competition to the market for our products so we can position ourselves as thought leaders with a clear competitive advantage.
- Our team prides itself on our creativity. When faced with problems, the team are confident they can come up with creative solutions.
- We have a youthful and energetic team that understands current market trends and can lead the pack in reaching a younger consumer market.
- Our team has exceptional expertise in the field which will give us the means to achieve our goals.
Intellectual property, brand reputation, customer support, knowledge, flexibility.
- Our business holds the intellectual property and patents that gives us an advantage over our competitors.
- We have a strong brand reputation that will allow us to introduce new products to a warm market segment.
- Our customer support is highly regarded which helps us to be positioned as a market leader.
- Our team is extremely knowledgeable thanks to our ongoing training and good long-term staff retention.
- We are a flexible small business that can pivot faster than our larger competitors.
Technological advantage, commitment, diversity, communication, streamlined processes.
- We have a technological advantage and technical expertise thanks to our extensive investment in both hardware and software in recent years.
- Our team is committed to our united goal. There is a clear sense of camaraderie across all team members.
- We are a diverse team that allows us to get insights from people from a wide range of backgrounds.
- Our company prides itself in its excellent communication between staff and teams which helps us break down bottlenecks when they arise.
- We have streamlined processes and procedures including standardization and clear roles within the company which usually helps day-to-day tasks go smoothly.
Strong relationships, operating profits, remuneration, business growth.
- Compared to our larger competitors, there is a low level of bureaucracy which helps lower costs and maintain profit margins.
- Our team and board members have high social capital and strong relationships, including good connections with lawmakers and social influencers who can help us promote our interests.
- We’ve got strong books and regular operating profits that will prepare us for unexpected market bumps and changes.
- Our pay and remuneration are excellent, allowing us to retain staff for the long term.
- We have experienced consistent business growth for several years. This helps us to attract investors.
Reliable supply chain, product diversification, loyalty program, product quality, training.
- We have a reliable supply chain and good long-term contracts with our suppliers.
- We have strong product diversification that has enabled us to mitigate potential risks.
- We have a popular loyalty program for customers that has consistently bought us customer loyalty and brought customers back as repeat buyers.
- We have a reputation for excellent product quality. Our product quality is objectively better than our competitors.
- We have highly trained staff that know our products inside out and the know-how to assist customers.
Financial position, brand reputation, location, marketing team.
- We have excellent dividends for investors that help us to attract ongoing capital for growth.
- Our company is lucky to have financial resources including reliable investors and a line of credit that can sustain our funding heading forward.
- We are well-established within our home city marketplace. This provides a good base to grow into other markets.
- We have a well-located office in a large livable city that makes it easy to attract high-quality employees.
- We have an excellent marketing plan, social media, and SEO team that draws reliable organic traffic for our brand name.
- We have a highly engaged email list to whom we can sell directly when doing product launches.
- We have a consistently growing market share that we expect to keep going into the future.
- We’re known for a progressive company culture that invites young people, parents, and diverse communities into our pool of staff.
Related: Threats Examples for a SWOT Analysis
How to do a SWOT Analysis
SWOT stands for the four categories of the SWOT matrix: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and costs:
- Strengthsare internal factors about you that you consider to be valuable in achieving your goals. If this SWOT analysis is for a product or business, it’s the strengths of the product or business.
- Weaknessesare internal factors that might prevent you from achieving your goals. Keeping an eye on these weaknesses can help you work on them and reflect on how you can ensure they don’t hold you back.
- Opportunitiesare external factors that you can foresee that you could leverage to meet your goals. There may be upcoming external opportunities for training, for example.
- Threatsare external factors that you can foresee that might hinder your goals. Foreseeing these external threats can help you avoid them or minimize their impact.
Personal SWOT Analysis Template
Goal:Write down what your goal is.
| Strengths (Internal) – What do you do well (in relation to your goal)? – What study skills do you currently have? – What academic writing and research skills do you currently have? – What workforce skills do you currently have? – What soft skills do you currently have? – What hard skills do you currently have? | Weaknesses (Internal) – What do you think you’re not very good at (in relation to your goal)? – What do you struggle with when studying? – What are your weaknesses in regards to academic writing and researching? – What workforce readiness skills do you lack? – What soft skills do you lack? – What hard skills do you lack? |
| Opportunities (External) – Are there upcoming seminars, classes, or lectures that can help you improve? – Do you have access to resources to help you improve? – Do you have access to people or friends who can help you out? | Threats (External) – What contextual factors might get in the way of your goals? – What obstacles can you predict that might interfere with your plans? – What factors out of your direct control might interfere with your plans? – What resources do you lack that might cause problems? |
Full SWOT Analysis Example: Starbucks
Goal:To smoothly transition into an entry-level position in my career choice
| Strengths – One of the most recognizable brand names in the world. –Strong market share. – Excellent capital investment. – International supply chain. | Weaknesses – Concerns about the health of the products could deter consumers. – There are not that many more low-hanging fruit markets to expand into. |
| Opportunities – Future product lines could be developed. – Potential acquisitions of more brands under the brand umbrella. | Threats – New international tax treaties. – Potential new government regulations about environmental concerns. – Downward economic trends on the horizon |
Personal SWOT Analysis Example
Goal:To smoothly transition into an entry-level position in my career choice
| Strengths – I got a great GPA that will look good on a resume. – I know exactly what career I want and I’ve got a few big businesses that I’d like to target for a position. – I can confidently talk about my skills and work ethic. | Weaknesses – I’m not sure whether my resume looks the way it should. – I don’t have social capital (By this I mean I know anyone in the industry who can help me get a foot in the door). – I don’t have much practical work experience. |
| Opportunities – The university is offering a career fair day where I can meet potential employers. – I could find a resume writing workshop somewhere in the city. | Threats – The industry is competitive so I know it may take me time to find a job. – The economy isn’t doing well so fewer people are hiring. – I’ll need to pay my bills while looking for a job. I may have to move in with my parents for a few months. |
See More: 28 Personal SWOT Analysis Examples for Students
Who Invented the SWOT Analysis?
The SWOT analysis was created in the 1960s by Albert Humphrey from the Stanford Research Institute. Humphrey created it as a brainstorming tool for businesses and individuals to reflect on ways to achieve goals.
Conclusion
Use a SWOT analysis for a brainstorming session and personal reflection. When thinking about strengths in a SWOT analysis, focus on things you know you’re intrinsically good at. These could be personal traits including both soft skills and hard skills.
Chris Drew (PhD)
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Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]
