What do you want from your career? What will make your work meaningful and rewarding? The answers to these questions give us information on your Career Values, which, generally speaking, refers to the things that are most important to you in your career.

Career Values are unique to each student and can be quite similar to very different from the next student. They can also be quite similar within family to quite different. Sometimes, when Career Values are quite different, students can feel in disagreement with family about career planning (check out ideas about what to do when disagreements exist within family). Many students and people value job security, good pay and positive career status. When a career provides this to a student, it is said that their career values are being met.

Perhaps the most common Career Values identified by students are:

• Job Security
• Salary
• Status

You need to think about how important these values are to you as well as other values such as helping people, flexibility, creativity, colleagues and intellectual stimulation. We emphasize the importance of not looking just at the salary of a job/career before picking!

Strategies for Identifying Your Career Values:

• Consider all the jobs and volunteer experiences you’ve had and think about what you enjoyed and didn’t enjoy about each. For example, did you enjoy the freedom given to you in one job? Did you have an opportunity to use your creative skills and ideas? Do you want these in your career?
• Talk with others about what they value in work. Parents can be especially helpful here: ask them what they like about their job.
• Use any of the many tools on the internet to evaluate your Career Values. Use these tools as starting points to begin a discussion.
• Complete the Values Clarification Activity (PDF).

Next Steps:

Use your values to suggest career options (especially helpful if done combined with other information such as interests) and to evaluate career options under consideration. Check with a Career Advisor in our Career Centre for more assistance.