Have you ever felt like your job wasn’t right for you or you didn’t know what your career goals were? Do you want to understand your career motivations and how to make better career choices based on your values and abilities?
If your answer is yes, then you probably need to understand an important concept: career anchors.
What is a career anchor?
Career anchors are a theory proposed by organizational psychologist and MIT professor Edgar H. Schein in the 1960s to describe our career dynamics and values. It is the one thing we are unwilling to give up in our careers and is our inner compass that guides our career decisions.
Schein believes that our career anchor is composed of three aspects:
- Skills and abilities – the things we are good at. We can discover our strengths and weaknesses by reflecting and getting feedback.
- Motivation – what we want. We can discover our interests and ambitions, and the price we are willing to pay for them, through different experiences.
- Values – the things that are important to us. We can discover our beliefs and attitudes, and the satisfaction we seek in our work, through different environments and relationships.
Schein points out that our career anchors change over time and experience, but once formed, they become a core part of our professional identity, affecting our career development and satisfaction.
What are the types of career anchors?
Based on his research, Schein divides career anchors into eight types, each with its own characteristics and needs. We may have multiple career anchors, but there are usually one or two that stand out the most. Understanding our own career anchor type can help us find the career direction and development opportunities that best suit us.
Here is a brief introduction to the eight career anchors:
- Technical/Functional Ability: This type of person values their professional skills and knowledge, likes to continuously improve and innovate in their field, and is unwilling to give up their technical role for promotion. They are suitable for highly technical jobs, such as engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc.
- General management ability: This type of people value their management and leadership abilities, like to play decision-making and coordination roles in organizations, and are unwilling to give up management positions in order to maintain their technical expertise. They are suitable for management and administrative jobs, such as managers, directors, presidents, etc.
- Autonomy/Independence: This type of person values their own freedom and autonomy, likes to work in their own way and at their own pace, and is unwilling to give up their independence in order to obey other people’s arrangements and rules. They are suitable for freelance or entrepreneurial work, such as consultants, writers, artists, etc.
- Security/stability: This type of person values their own security and stability, likes secure and predictable work, and is unwilling to give up their stability in order to pursue new opportunities and challenges. They are suitable for jobs with high stability, such as civil servants, teachers, bank clerks, etc.
- Entrepreneurial innovation: People of this type value their creativity and innovation, like to engage in risky and rewarding work, and are unwilling to give up their entrepreneurial spirit in order to avoid failure and criticism. They are suitable for entrepreneurial or innovative jobs, such as entrepreneurs, inventors, designers, etc.
- Service/dedication career: This type of people value their service and dedication, like to engage in work of social value and significance, and are unwilling to give up their ideals and beliefs in pursuit of personal interests and fame. They are suitable for service or public welfare work, such as medical staff, social workers, volunteers, etc.
- Pure challenge: This type of person values their own challenges and competition, likes to engage in difficult and stressful work, and is unwilling to give up his desire for challenge in pursuit of comfort and dullness. They are suitable for challenging jobs, such as sales staff, athletes, lawyers, etc.
- Lifestyle: This type of person values their lifestyle and balance, likes to engage in work with flexibility and variety, and is unwilling to give up their quality of life in pursuit of career success. They are suitable for jobs that can balance work and life, such as professors, consultants, travelers, etc.
How to determine your career anchor?
If you want to identify your career anchor, you can take the following steps:
- Look back on your career and identify your most satisfying and least satisfying experiences and analyze what factors led to your satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
-Think about your career goals, imagine your future career, and identify what you most want to achieve and what you are least willing to give up. - Take the Career Anchor Test, which uses a series of questions to assess your preference for and emphasis on different career anchors. You can click on the link below to take an online career anchor test.
- Compare your test results with your career experience and goals to see if there are consistencies and differences, and analyze the causes and effects.
- Based on your career anchor, formulate your career development plan, find the career direction and development opportunities that best suit you, adjust your professional behavior and attitude, and improve your career satisfaction and happiness.
Career Anchor Questionnaire Online Free Test: www.psyctest.cn/t/OLxN6Qxn/
Summarize
Career anchors are a useful tool that can help us understand our own career motivations and values, guiding us to make better career choices and development. By identifying our career anchors, we can find jobs that are best for us, achieve our career goals, and enjoy our careers.
If you are interested in career anchors, you can read Shi En’s book ‘Career Anchors: Discovering Your Career Motivation’ or refer to the following websites and articles:
I hope this article is helpful to you, thank you for reading!
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