As we progress through our careers, we are likely to consider many potential pathways and experience a number of different job roles and occupational contexts. As part of our career planning and development, there is great benefit in identifying what we are primarily looking for from our jobs, what we value and how we see ourselves as workers. While our self-image in this respect is likely to develop over time (and may be less clear to us when we are at an earlier point in our careers), research suggests that each of us is likely to settle on a core, singular set of expectations of what we are seeking from our work and careers – whether or not we are expressly aware of doing so.

On one level, the basis of a job is relational: your organisation is looking for you to meet its needs in relation to the range of functions and activities that you carry out and the relationships with a variety of stakeholders that you develop. In turn, you are likely seeking to have your professional needs met by undertaking work that fosters your motivation, aligns with your values and draws on and challenges your competencies.

But research and day-to-day experience alike tell us that there is considerable diversity in what workers are looking for from their work and careers, and different individuals can experience the very same job role very differently, based in part on the complicated interplay of personal interests, needs, motives and capabilities.

And simply reviewing a job description and hearing general information about a job, for example, can risk presenting a rather narrow, functional picture of what it would be like to undertake a particular role, at the expense of a richer understanding of how you would be likely to experience it, based on your values, aspirations and overall self-image.

“Career anchors” as tools of self-understanding

Career theories

So as we navigate our careers, how can we consider whether we would be engaged by particular roles and work out what we will find fulfilling in our professional lives? A key conceptual tool is notion of “career anchors” developed by Edgar Schein.

In some of his earlier work, Schein focused on the career aspirations of graduates of the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the 1960s. His study of management school graduates included 44 research participants, all of whom stated at the beginning of their careers that they aimed to become CEOs (chief executive officers). And yet, when undertaking a longitudinal follow-up study in 1973, Schein found not only that the participants had pursued highly varied pathways (with only a quarter remaining on a general CEO management track), but that each individual had formed a clear “self-concept” of their competences, career motives and personal values (Schein and Van Maanen, 2016).

This self-image is essentially understood to be the basis of an “internal career” (or an “anchor”, as some of the participants described it), which was regarded as a useful guide for considering personal motivations and restrictions in relation to career decisions. Schein’s notion of a subjective self-image presents similarities to the conceptualisations of other leading career theorists. Donald Super (1980), for example, pioneered the life career rainbow, a sensitising tool for considering how one of five life stages and one of eight life roles influence our experiences of career development. Rather than suggest that we should be matched to roles on an “objective” basis, Super’s work also emphasises the importance of people’s subjective lens on what is meaningful to them, but is more inclined than is Schein’s to argue for the scope for individuals to change over time.

Another interesting example is provided by John L. Holland’s theory of vocational personalities and work environments (Gysbers et al., 2014). Holland’s theory suggests that we can begin understanding the suitability of career paths with reference to six personality types, which are articulated under the RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional) model. Rather than focusing on the subjective views of workers, Holland’s theory emphasises the notion of matching people to roles and working environments.

Understanding the career anchors

Based on extensive research over time and consideration of the wider applicability of workers’ self-concept, Schein’s framework came to suggest that there are a total of eight core “anchors” that each of us will have a tendency to gravitate towards, on an exclusive basis:

1. General managerial (GM) competence, where the key interest is in directing the activities of others and climbing to a high level in an organisation. Example roles include CEOs, chief operating officers (COOs) and heads of division, working in organisations across all industries
2. Technical functional (TF) competence, where the key interest is in applying and developing your skills in a particular line of work. Example roles include software engineers, data scientists and cyber security professionals, and example industries encompass the technology sector and actuarial work
3. Entrepreneurial creativity (EC), where the key interest is in creating an enterprise or organisation of your own. People with a strong entrepreneurial drive can be found across many different industries, and thrive on coming up with ambitious ideas and bringing these to fruition
4. Autonomy/independence (AU), where the key interest is defining your own work in your own way. If this anchor appeals to you, then working as an independent consultant on project-based work is likely to be a good fit
5. Security/stability (SE), where the key interest is in employment certainty or tenure in a job. Examples of roles with strong job security include teachers, nurses and transport sector staff, working, for example, in large companies and public sector organisations
6. Service/dedication to a cause (SV), where the key interest is in pursuing work that you believe contributes something of value to wider society. If this anchor resonates with you, you may value working for a charity, an NGO or a public sector organisation, within sectors such as education, international development, counselling and health
7. Pure challenge (CH), where the key interest is in working on solutions to difficult problems, defeating worthy opponents or overcoming challenging obstacles. If you identify with the pure challenge anchor, you thrive on solving problems and enjoy competitive, pressured working environments. Example roles include sales positions and example industries may encompass finance, consulting and real estate
8. Lifestyle (LS), where the key interest is in balancing personal and family needs while meeting the requirements of a career. As a result, you may value the work-life balance opportunities offered by public and third sector roles. If you do not have personal and family commitments, then the roles that you pursue may tend to be for a fixed period of time, perhaps on a part-time basis, within industries with opportunities for temporary work.

While it may seem as though many professionals take on a variety of roles and challenges throughout their working lives, Schein’s research points to the “remarkable stability [in] a career, even one that looks chaotic and without pattern, when viewed externally or solely from a glance at a resume” (Schein and Van Maanen, 2016: 166).

The basis for using the career anchors framework is that we tend to develop a keen sense of what is engaging, desirable and familiar to us as our career progresses. A key means of understanding this tendency is with reference to a core set of professional archetypes with which we are likely to identify. When we are at an early stage in our careers and have not yet had the opportunity to build up multiple years of experience, it can be understandable to view many (and perhaps even all) of these anchors as critical to us. But Schein argues that one of the identified anchors will come to dominance as we gain a stronger sense of our self-image, values, motives and dislikes in relation to work, and that this is likely to become clearer to us over time.

Using the “career anchors” framework in your career planning

In view of this research-backed basis for thinking about self-image and the consistent predominance of particular values, motivations and aspirations, how might the “career anchors” framework help you with your career development and decision-making?

There are perhaps three main ways to think about career anchors as a feature of your career planning:

1. General self-reflection and career anchors: Does a particular anchor resonate with you strongly? Do you aspire to be an entrepreneur and develop and run your own organisation? Or, are you primarily looking for your work to offer you a strong sense of security and stability? Do you see yourself as keen to oversee the work of others in a general managerial capacity? Or, are you perhaps more motivated by the desire to develop technical proficiency with a particular skill set? When considering your sectors of interest and the specific roles that you would like to explore, these types of reflections may prove very useful in guiding your focus and attention.
2. Specific jobs and careers anchors: If you’re already looking at applying for particular jobs, it may be valuable to consider how your affinity for particular career anchors (and, ideally, one in particular) may map on to the requirements of a role. Does the articulation of the job seem to chime with your self-image and what you’re looking for? Some caution may be warranted at this point: Schein suggests that organisations may not always fully grasp what their roles entail and job descriptions can be “at best highly general” (Schein and Van Maanen, 2016: 168). As part of exploring beyond a job description, could you reach out for a discussion of the role with a hiring manager, informed by your existing appreciation of the features of your career anchor?
3. Reaching out to alumni and career anchors: You may be aware or already have direct experience of the value of researching and reaching out to LSE alumni who are working in roles and sectors of interest to you (such as via using LinkedIn to search for LSE alumni, or using the School’s Ask an Alum tool). When speaking with alumni, using the term “career anchors” is unlikely to be familiar to them. However, asking about their values, motivations, likes and dislikes may draw out some interesting reflections on their satisfaction with their role and career pathway. It’s important to bear in mind that two people can both find a role to be very fulfilling, even if their reasons for doing so may differ markedly (meaning that they would identify with two different career anchors). Therefore, even if alumni don’t describe their role or experience in terms that speak to you especially strongly, this is not necessarily to suggest that you would not enjoy the position. The important thing is to seek to learn more about the reality of undertaking a role and pursuing a particular career path, and whether this would align with your interests, values and self-image.

Next steps: Career anchors and learning about your values, strengths, competencies and motivations

Though we are likely to take on a variety of roles as our career develops, the career anchors discussed above can provide an enlightening framework for identifying what is important to us in our professional work and the consistent features of job opportunities that we are likely to find both engaging and familiar. As Schein’s research highlights, using the notion of different anchors offers a strong guiding tool for the development of your professional self-image and for the evaluation of potential new pathways, opportunities and decisions.

If you would like to explore your values, strengths, competencies and motivations in further depth, you may wish to take a look at the “self-assessment and career matching tools” that are available on the LSE Careers website. And if you would like to discuss your thoughts with us, please don’t hesitate to sign up for an appointment with a careers consultant via our CareerHub platform.

References

Gysbers, N. C., et al. (2014) Career Counseling: Holism, Diversity, and Strengths, Newark, US, American Counseling Association

Schein, E. H. and Van Maanen, J. (2016) “Career anchors and job/role planning: Tools for career and talent management”, Organizational Dynamics, 45(3), pp. 165–173

Super, D. E. (1980) “A life-span, life-space approach to career development”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, 16, pp. 282–298