053: Translating Your Core Values into your Career Decision

Translating Your Core Values into your Career Decision

This month’s podcasts are covering the importance of incorporating your skills, values, personality, and areas of expertise into your career decision. Remember that your career decision is on a macro- and micro-level: Choosing the career field you will pursue, and the jobs within that career field. Even on a more micro-level, this self-knowledge will help you decide which assignments, projects, or committees you volunteer for – or you boss assigns you to. Today, I want to talk about your core values…what is most important to you in an employer, a work environment, and the specific work you’re doing.

Identifying these “non-negotiable” values helps you align your career choices with what is most important to you. And alignment increases your chance for career success, compensation, and satisfaction. Here’s how you use this information:

• If there is a career or specific job you are considering, evaluate it against your core values to determine how well it meshes with your values.

• If you are exploring careers, look for those that hold your most important values. No matter how many “niceties” the career might have, if it doesn’t offer the value you hold most important, you won’t be satisfied.

Note that some of your values may apply to a career as a whole; other values may be job-specific. For example, “Using physical strength/coordination” is a universal value for a career in physical therapy. Within the career of physical therapy, however, some jobs may satisfy a value of “work on a team,” whereas other jobs may be geared more towards a value of “opportunity to work independently.”

Here are the values on the sort activity:

• Utilize physical strength and coordination

• Utilize courage and take risks

• Utilize creativity and originality

• Opportunity for advancement

• Ability to do a job as efficiently as possible

• Receive recognition for accomplishments

• Ability to exert power and influence

• Higher than average financial rewards

• Ability to help and serve others

• Ability to teach and train others

• Search for knowledge and truth

• Closer relationships with co-workers

• Opportunity for continued learning

• Opportunity to work independently

• Good relationship with manager

• Job security

• Intellectual challenge

• Ability to freely express faith and beliefs

• Ability to exert authority and leadership

• Ability to give ideas and suggestions

• Respond to problems or emergencies

• Perform clearly defined tasks

• Ability to complete tasks with autonomy

• Flexibility in work hours and schedule

• Work on a team

• Quality, luxurious surroundings

• Earnings directly tied to your contribution

• A quiet workspace

• Opportunity to travel frequently

• Experimenting with different solutions

• Highly structured environment

• Unstructured, open environment

• Variety of work tasks

• Having a fixed set of tasks

• Working on multiple projects simultaneously

• Working on one project at a time

• A competitive work environment

• Work that mentally challenges you

• Receive clear instructions

Let’s play out a couple of examples. Let’s say your 5 top values are:

• Utilize physical strength and coordination

• Utilize courage and take risks

• Respond to problems or emergencies

• Unstructured, open environment

• Opportunity to travel frequently

Does this sound like the values of an accountant? A school teacher? A writer? What comes to mind is someone who takes groups out on extreme vacations…hiking, rafting, horseback riding. See how these values play into that career choice? Here’s another example:

Someone’s top 5 values are:

• Ability to exert power and influence

• Higher than average financial rewards

• Competitive work environment

• Work that mentally challenges you

• Quality, luxurious surroundings

These would be ideal values for someone entering the field of law, particularly in private practice (their value of higher than average financial rewards might not be satisfied working for the DA’s office, and they probably wouldn’t have quality, luxurious surroundings there, either). There are no right or wrong answers here, and there are an infinite number of values. These values then become the yardstick by which you measure a career field and job opportunities within that field. It helps you not be swayed by other things that are nice enough – but not one of your Core Values. For example, if one of your Core Values is having a quiet workspace…you know you won’t be able to do your job without a fair amount of solitude.

You interview for a job and learn that your office will be the first one in the door. People will be sticking their heads in all day every day, and you are the first line of defense when there’s a problem (this situation actually occurred with the last university I worked for). You have a couple of options: You can not accept the job if it’s offered or you can negotiate a different location for your office once they offer the job to you and before you accept. But you KNOW you won’t be happy and productive in the office they are offering you.

At the end of the month, we’re going to be putting all the aspects we’re talking about this month together. In the meantime, I hope you’re listening to each episode and drawing some conclusions about yourself.

---

Are you in the wrong job that chips away at you every day? The CareerSpring document and coaching program will help you find a job that uses your zone of genius, recognizes your value, and pays you what you’re worth.

If you’re ready to take your job search to the next level by working with a highly experienced professional with a track record of client success, schedule a complimentary consult to learn more: