Edgar Schein - Career Anchors

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

Introduction

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This booklet is designed to help you to identify your career anchor and to think about how your values relate to your career choices. When you know your career anchor, you empower yourself to confront career choices and decisions in a manner consistent with what you truly value and how you really see yourself.

Your career anchor is a combination of perceived areas of competence, motives, and values that you would not give up; it represents your real self. Without knowledge of your anchor, outside incentives might tempt you into situations or jobs that subsequently are not satisfactory because you feel that "this is not really me." The questionnaire and interview suggested in this booklet are intended to help you to avoid such situations.

Regardless of your present job or career, your future decisions will be easier and more valid if you have a clear understanding of your own orientation toward work, your motives, your values, and your self-perceived talents. Such understanding will be enhanced by the activities suggested in this booklet.

The activities suggested are not tests, nor will they reveal hidden talents. ~1 Rather they represent a systematic way to explore your own past activities and future aspirations in order to get a clearer picture of yourself and the qualities in you that you may not have thought much about or may take for granted.

Research on career anchors has shown that most people see themselves in

terms of the eight categories that will be described in the following sections.

r However, the important part of this exercise is the actual answering of the orien

_j(S ) tation questionnaire and participation in the mutual interview, because the

-1 ^^ \^categories do not mean anything outside of the context of your own past history

and future aspirations. It is the thinking and talking about career and life events

that gradually give you a more explicit understanding of your own priorities and

values.

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Most people who have done the interview have enjoyed it. This may be the first time you have spent several hours talking about yourself and your career with a willing and interested listener.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOKLET

This booklet contains several sections, including a general definition of the nature of career anchors, a discussion of career development, and detailed descriptions of the eight career anchor types, lb go through the activities recommended takes three to four hours, but they need not be done all at one time. The instructions below are designed to be completely self-explanatory and will guide you through the process step by step.

It is recommended that you begin by filling in the Career Orientations Inventory that begins on page 3. Complete the scoring sheet, but do not concern yourself with your scores or with the labeling of the columns. Go on to read the next section that explains how careers develop and the meaning of the career anchor categories that have been identified in prior research.

The most important part of the analysis is the interview with a partner. Unless you talk out your own career history with someone else, you will not really confront the pattern of talents, motives, and values that your career decisions and aspirations reflect.

Interviewing someone else about his or her career is also helpful. You and your partner can plan to interview each other, but not necessarily at the same session. Each interview typically lasts from one to two hours. Ideally the partner also should have a copy of the Career Anchors booklet if you are both doing the exercise.

HOW TO SELECT A PARTNER

Choose a partner with whom you will feel free to share the events of your career so far, as well as your future aspirations. For this reason, it is best to avoid a superior or subordinate or a peer with whom you may be in competition. The partner does not have to be the same age you are or be in the same line of work. Many people report that a spouse or a close friend makes a good partner.

The partner does not have to have any training as an interviewer; all of the questions to be asked are provided in this book. All that is needed is some interest and willingness to discuss your career with you.

Career Anchors

Career Orientations

Inventory

The purpose of this questionnaire is to stimulate your thoughts about your own areas of competence, your motives, and your values. This questionnaire alone will not reveal your career anchor because it is too easy to bias your answers. However, it will activate your thinking and prepare you for the discussion with your partner.

Try to answer the questions as honestly as you can and work quickly. Avoid extreme ratings except in situations in which you clearly have strong feelings in one direction or the other.

HOW TO RATE THE ITEMS

/ For each of the next forty items, rate how true that item is for you in general by assigning a number from 1 to 6. The higher the number, the more that item is true for you. For example, if the item says "I dream of being the president of a company," you would rate that as follows:

"1" if the statement is never true for you "2" or "3" if the statement is occasionally true for you "4" or "5" if the statement is often true for you "6" if the statement is always true for you

Please turn the page and begin your self-report by writing the appropriate rating in the blank to the left of each item.

CAREER ORIENTATIONS INVENTORY

Use the following scale to rate how true each of the items is for you:

Never True Occasionally TVue Often TVue Always TVue

for Me for Me for Me for Me

12 3 4 5 6

1. I dream of being so good at what I do that my expert advice will be sought continually.

2. I am most fulfilled in my work when I have been able to integrate

and manage the efforts of others.

3. I dream of having a career that will allow me the freedom to do a

job my own way and on my own schedule.

4. Security and stability are more important to me than freedom and

autonomy.

5. I am always on the lookout for ideas that would permit me to start

my own enterprise.

6. I will feel successful in my career only if I have a feeling of having

made a real contribution to the welfare of society.

7. I dream of a career in which I can solve problems or win out in situations that are extremely challenging.

8. I would rather leave my organization than to be put into a job that

would compromise my ability to pursue personal and family concerns.

9. I will feel successful in my career only if I can develop my technical

or functional skills to a very high level of competence.

10. I dream of being in charge of a complex organization and making

decisions that affect many people.

11. I am most fulfilled in my work when I am completely free to define