When dealing with career dissatisfaction, one of the first things we think about is finding our passion. Figuring out how to do what we love. And it’s true – it’s essential to think about doing something we enjoy. It’s crucial to know our interests when figuring out our ideal career.

However, possibly the most important consideration when it comes to making career decisions is not always our passions, but our own personal Career Values.

What are Career Values?

Career values are all about the meaning an individual finds in a job, including preferences and needs. These values are very specific to individual people and can vary greatly depending on a number of factors, including various career backgrounds, personal preferences, personality, current life circumstances, and many other reasons.

Career Values: The Search For Meaning

Career values are important because they are how we derive meaning from our jobs. If we’re working in opposition to our career values, we won’t find much satisfaction in our jobs. We will likely wonder what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. We may feel as though we’re only working to get by and survive until the next paycheck.

If you often feel lost and like your work in meaningless, there’s a good chance that it’s not aligned with your values.

This is why it’s important to identify your career values early on and search for careers and companies that are attuned to your values. Sounds easy right? Well, no…. this is actually very difficult to do. Why?

First of all, it’s difficult to identify your own career values! That’s the most critical first step. Most people don’t actively know their career values, preferences and needs. Often we may be confused about our own values because others in our lives have (often unknowingly) pushed their values onto us (this could include parents, spouses, friends, or even society itself). As a result, we may not fully embrace our own values and instead plan our career around the values that other people hold to be important.

We need our jobs, and often don’t have an active choice in the matter, so we end up in roles that don’t meet our needs and wants, but we accept them because we don’t have a choice in the matter at the time. However, when we’re planning our long-term career or a career transition, assessing our career values is hugely important, because it’s critical to match our career goals to our values, as well as skills, knowledge, and interests.

Types of Career Values

There are a lot of career values out there, so it can be hard to determine which ones are the most important to you. I’ve included a list of some of the most important career values to consider below. As you read the descriptions, consider whether the values are important to you in your career or not. Reflecting on previous career experiences (thinking about what you enjoyed and didn’t enjoy) can also be very valuable in discovering what’s important to you.

As you read the below descriptions, ask yourself these questions:

• When you read about the value, do you feel a strong reaction as to whether it’s important (or not important)? Make a note of that. If you don’t have much of a reaction, the value might not be that important to you either way.
• Does reading about the value remind you of your previous work experience (positive or negative)? If so, why is that important?
• Are you thinking about all aspects of your life (including your personal and family life) when you evaluate the importance of these values?
• When you make career decisions, are you making them based on your values or someone else’s?

Independence

Are you the type of person who prefers to set your own schedule, determine your own priorities and not answer to anyone else? You’ll likely be unsatisfied in a lot of work environments, as many workplaces can have inflexible policies, micromanaging bosses, and strict schedules that don’t allow much flexibility in your work.

On the other hand, many people are comforted by clear work guidelines and knowing what is expected of them. They are not comfortable in work environments with rapid changes and unclear policies, as this level of uncertainty can be unsettling. This lines up with the below values of stability and security. Stability is another value that may be important to some,  along with steady employment and guaranteed salary.

Security

The sense of security can be hugely important for many people. It’s very important for some people to know that they have a secure job to go to where things will be consistent. On a day to day basis, it is important for many that they don’t experience any surprises regarding their employment, salary, or job expectations.

For some though, the above description might sound a little bit like torture (okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but still). For others, predictability like the above isn’t important at all and they may actually dislike it.

Teamwork & Helping Others

The ability to help others as part of a career is critical for some people. The personal satisfaction derived from working in close contact with others to provide them with assistance is crucially important for some people. People in this category find it essential to have interpersonal contact with others and feel that they are improving the lives of others in order to gain personal satisfaction.

By the way, often people struggle with this value if it’s NOT as important to them. It doesn’t make you a selfish person if  “helping” is not one of your most important career values. It just means when it comes to your career, providing help and assistance to others is not your main focus. This also doesn’t mean that you don’t help others in your personal life. The bottom line: Don’t feel that this has to be one of your top values!

Financial Reward

Money motivates everyone to a certain extent. We all need a paycheck to earn a living, and that’s a reason why a lot of us work. However, for some people, money is a more significant motivator.

Also, depending on your circumstances, money may simply be more important to you at this time in your life. Our career values can change over time and due to a variety of circumstances. Perhaps you have a lot of family responsibilities, or student debt to pay off. Earning money might be a priority for you at this time to ensure you are able to accomplish all of your financial goals.

Work-Life Balance

The balance between one’s work and personal life is important to most people, but this value can often take priority for some. This can often depend on your current life circumstances – for example, if you have a young family at home, spending time with them is going to be a priority! It’s not just about family either – people may prioritize areas like personal interests or travel. However, the balance between work and home life is highly individual, so you’ll need to reflect on how important this value is for you.

Creativity

It can be extremely important for some people to tap into their creative side in their career. “Creativity” in this sense isn’t focused on the arts only – it also prioritizes problem-solving and developing innovative solutions. If creativity is important to you, working in a setting where you can come up with solutions to improve systems and products will likely sound interesting. You probably won’t like working in companies where maintaining the status quo and following procedures is important.

On the other hand, some people may find the above description to be very stressful! Coming up with innovative solutions may be out of their comfort zone. If this is you, you likely feel more comfortable with established systems and processes. An environment requiring you to be constantly creative and developing new ideas may sound extremely challenging.

Discover Your Career Values Through Coaching

Interested in learning more? The Career Values Scale measures a person’s work values, preferences, and needs. These values are a part of a person’s core beliefs and provide meaning to the person’s career and life. Finding a job that is aligned with your career values can lead to greater job satisfaction and the ultimate achievement of both your personal and career goals.

The Career Values Scale can be included in many of my coaching packages, including the Career Exploration and Career Transition packages.

Further exploration of your career values might be key in figuring out what you want to do in your future career.

Interested in learning more about Career Coaching? I provide Career Coaching services to clients located in BC, Canada, and globally (I’m based in Vancouver, Canada). Learn more here: Career Coaching: Vancouver.