Career values are an important indicator to both you and employers about the top priorities at work. A recent survey found that well-being came top for work values for 90% of the knowledge workers surveyed. Working for a company that aligned with their values was important to 80% of those respondents. Any consideration of career choice would be incomplete without consideration of career values.
What Are Career Values?
Your career values are factors you consider to be important in your work. Just as your personal values are the moral compass for your choices and behaviours generally, career values steer what you think is right and of high priority for you in a job.
These values are often shaped by our experiences, family and culture. For example, it is hardly surprising, in a post-COVID survey of career values, that the top priority was well-being (as mentioned in the introduction). Our experiences of physical and mental difficulties, such as going through a pandemic or experiencing burnout, can lead to a change in our priorities.
A personal example shows how life and career values are very closely linked. In my early 20s, one of my top values was independence. I worked to earn money to save up for a deposit on a house and afford the mortgage. Now that I am in my 30s, life has changed, I have a young family to look after. Family has become my top value. I also value work/life balance due to past experiences of burnout, and lack of purpose and wanting to be useful to others.
Your values change throughout life, so it is useful to reassess your values regularly to check that your career and values still match.
Types of Career Values
Intrinsic
These are career values that come from you internally, and what you consider to be important. These are often indicated by your emotional response: how do actions for or against these values make you feel? These include moral values, such as integrity, honesty and trustworthiness.
External
These career values come from external sources. These include monetary value, such as prioritising buying a nice house, car, gadgets or jewellery.
Lifestyle Values
These career values are based around how you want to live your life. For example, you may value a particular location for your work, due to having the lifestyle you desire in that area. Nomadic careers are becoming more popular as they become more possible, where the “laptop lifestyle” enables you to travel and work from anywhere.
Cultural Values
These values come from the cultures that you are a part of, and the agreed ideals of what is good. This often includes a social moral code of what is right. We can have values that come from different aspects of the cultures that we identify with. These values may also be relevant to work, such as regarding right and wrong ways to earn money.
How to Identify Your Career Values
There are several methods and resources available to help you to discover your top work values:
- Choose your top values from a values list (type “values list” into your search engine for many examples);
- Consider what you have found to be important in your career from past experiences.
- Take an online psychological values self-assessment. Recommended values questionnaires based on psychological reviews are: the Valued Living Questionnaire (VLQ), the (Schwartz) Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ), and the Personal Values Assessment (PVA).
For a detailed commentary of these three assessments for their high reliability and validity, see the article by positivepsychology.com. I found the last of these assessments the most helpful in gaining clarity about my top 10 values. To see more detail about my personal values, visit the About page.
Importance of Career Values
Career satisfaction decreases if there is a difference between your values and the values of your employer or employment. Recent research has found a link between personal values and career orientation (Arra & Martini, 2023). So whether you value self-transcendence, and seek dedication to a cause, or you want the challenge of a career that aids your self-enhancement, your values inform the choices that will lead to great career satisfaction.
Career Values and Career Choices
How do I use career values to find my ideal career?
Values are essentially showing your top priorities and preferences. They are one of the most important areas of self-awareness to be clear on before you enter the career decision-making process. To learn more about the full process recommended by psychologists, and how to apply it to your own career choices, click on our learning page here.
References:
Arra, A., & Martini, M. C. (2023). Chapter Professional choices and personal values: Similarities and differences between Schein’s career anchors and Schwartz basic values. In ASA 2022 Data-Driven Decision Making. Firenze University Press, Genova University Press.
