Career Anchors

Are you aware of the natural strengths and talents that you bring to work? What gets you up in the morning or causes you to go the extra mile on a project or initiative? What do you value most when it comes to your career? Developed by Edgar Schein at MIT's Sloan School of Management, the Career Anchors Self-Assessment is designed to help you think through those tough questions. A "career anchor" is a combination of perceived areas of competence, motives, and values related to professional work choices. Completing the self-assessment and taking time to consider your answers will help you to determine your career anchor as well as gain better insight into your own career situation. That awareness will help you to understand what values are most important to you, making your future job decisions easier and more valid, and your future workplace happiness and success more assured. The Career Anchors Self-Assessment includes a forty-item self survey and scoring instructions, a short description of the eight career anchor categories, and suggestions for next steps. This new edition is updated to reflect today's highly complex workplace. It is designed as a systematic way to explore past activities and future aspirations. It will help you recognize qualities that you might not have considered or have simply taken for granted.