Career values that form the basis of career and professional development decisions will lead to high job satisfaction and engagement.
Another part of your Good Job Fit Profile is to determine your top 5 career values.
Values are entirely subjective. Your values may be very different than your spouse's, parents' or best friends'. It is important to establish what you value and then look for a career that will satisfy those values. If you don’t, you will find that something is not right – your gut will remind you daily that your work does not mesh with your values. In fact, you may be down right miserable working in a job or field that misaligns with your values.
Once you’ve established the list of your top five values, look to see if your company’s corporate values fit with your personal values.
To create a list of the top five values that you can not live without on the job, start by using the process of elimination i.e. eliminate the items on the list below that you do not feel a burning need to have in a job and career. Keep eliminating items until you have 20 or so left. Now put the list of 20 career values in order of highest priority first, start with the top value that must align with the work you do. The top five items on your list become your must have career values.
My work must involve:
- compassion and caring – helping others and/or being helped
- a supervisor who is a strong role model and mentor
- consistent guidance and clear expectations from a supervisor
- increasing aesthetics, creating beauty
- creating or building objects or systems from scratch
- mental challenges and problem-solving
- physical challenges
- flexibility in commitments and schedule to allow for balance between work life and personal life
- being considered an expert in your field
- highly structured and defined work
- a high degree of competition
- the consistent practice of integrity and ethics
- an opportunity for spiritual growth
- a reward for loyalty and dependability
- having self-respect and pride in work
- stability and security
- above average financial compensation and financial rewards
- being recognized for quality of work
- contributing to societal good
- using creativity and imagination to be innovative
- variety and change – a dynamic, progressive approach
- professional development and continuous learning and growth
- friendships and social activities
- working in teams or groups
- prestige, notoriety, social status
- routine, predictable work projects
- deadlines and time demand/pressure challenges
- clear advancement paths/opportunities for advancement
- tranquility, comfort, and avoidance of pressure
- day-to-day contact with the public or people
- using cutting edge or pioneering technologies or techniques
- opportunities for supervision, power, leadership, influence
- responsibility and accountability around making decisions
- autonomy, independence, freedom (little or no supervision)
- precision work with little tolerance for error
- adventure, excitement and risk taking
If you have comments or suggestions on this article, please start a discussion
If you liked this article, try:
Corporate Value Performance Review
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