I. Three Steps to Career Discovery and Planning

Part 1. Self Assessment: A Personal Inventory & Self Portrait: Values
Career Services

C. Values

Values highlight what’s most important to you. They signal how you feel about the work itself and how you might want to contribute to a work setting. Some people look for opportunities in life that offer autonomy, prestige and power while others may be attracted to helping others and changing society or creative expression. All values need to be acknowledged with honesty and without judgement if you want to find a good vocational fit in your career.

In addition to understanding your personal values, you may also want to think more specifically about work values. Do you want to work for a large or small organization or company? Is working with other people more appealing than working alone? Do you like your responsibilities to be well defined or do you like some room for creativity? These are just a few examples of how to define your work values. Think about the summer jobs, internships, academic work and activities that you enjoyed the most and see if you can identify some common values. Also take a look at your least favorite work experiences for clues about what you consider important. Even negative experiences teach you about yourself.

It’s important to consider your values when looking at a variety of careers, because values serve as a barometer of emotion, measuring the degree of happiness and satisfaction in a career. Finally, how you prioritize your values can change over time, e.g. when you are young, stability may not be as important as when you have a family.

Work Values Exercise

(This exercise is under construction and is not yet functioning.  Please tally your values manually.)

The following exercise will begin to help you identify the work and personal values that are most important to you. The list below describes values and attitudes related to job satisfaction. Review the values on this list and choose those that are most significant to you.
 

-----Help Society: Do something that contributes to improving the world we live in

-----Help Others: Be involved in directly helping people either individually or in small groups

-----Public Contact: Have a lot of day-to-day contact with people

-----Work with Others: Work as a team member towards common goals

-----Affiliation: Be recognized as a member of a particular organization

-----Make Decisions: Have the power to decide on courses of action and policies

-----Work Alone: Do projects on your own with minimal contact with others

-----Competition: Engage in activities that clearly compare my abilities to others

-----Power and Authority: Oversee and delegate work activities of other people

-----Work under Pressure: Work in situations where time pressure and deadlines are prevalent

-----Influence People: Be in a position to change attitudes or opinions of other people

-----Knowledge: Engage in the pursuit of knowledge and truth

-----Intellectual Status: Become an expert in a given field

-----Artistic Creativity: Engage in creative work related to the arts

-----General Creativity: Create new ideas for programs, written materials and organization

-----Aesthetics: Study or appreciate the beauty of objects and ideas

-----Supervision: Have a job in which I am directly responsible for the work of others

-----Change and Variety: Have work responsibilities, which frequently change.

-----Precision Work: Work in settings where details are extremely important and there is little margin for error

-----Stability: Have job duties and work routines that are highly predictable

-----Security: Be assured of keeping my job and a reasonable financial reward

-----Recognition: Be acknowledged publicly for the quality of my work

-----Fast Pace: Work in situations where there is a lot of activity and tasks must be completed quickly

-----Excitement: Experience a high or frequent level of excitement in the course of my work

-----Adventure: Have work duties that require frequent risk taking

-----Profit,Gain: Have a strong likelihood of earning a substantial salary for my work

-----Independence: Be able to determine the nature of my work without significant direction from other

-----Moral Fulfillment: Feel that my work contributes to a set of morals that I feel is important

-----Location: Find a place to live, which is conducive to my lifestyle

-----Community: Live where I can participate in community affairs

-----Time Schedule: Be able to work according to my own schedule

Check off 4 or 5 of the most important work values. If there are other work values not included in this list that you feel are especially important, add them to your list in the box. Often there are trade-offs with values and part of this process over time will be how you rank them. Once you have come up with values that are important to you at this point in time (values do evolve), keep them in mind as you consider different career paths. For example, if you have a strong preference for creativity, independence and adventure, then consider fields which will allow you to fulfill those values.  Career counselors can be contacted to assist you in this process.

 

 

  ¬Previous                 Back to Career Discovery Main Page                Continue ®   

Career Services, University of Pennsylvania. Not to be copied or distributed without permission.

Career Services
University of Pennsylvania
Suite 20, McNeil Building,
3718 Locust Walk
Philadelphia
PA 19104-6209