Career Discovery
Values
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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.

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