Career Anchors: Navigating Work That Fits — Not Just Pays
CAREER
Most people believe that career development is primarily the company’s responsibility. In this view, managers are expected to help their teams grow and thrive. When someone’s career stalls, it’s common to place the blame on the manager. This perspective isn’t entirely wrong—companies do have an obligation to define roles clearly, allocate talent wisely, retain good people, and invest in development.
However, the root cause can be far more complex. Sometimes, systemic issues such as graduate underemployment or poor job performance are framed as individual problems. To a certain extent, each person must embrace the role of “entrepreneur of the self,” taking ownership of their own career journey. Yet, many graduates set off in the wrong direction, allowing societal influences or expectations to guide their career decisions rather than their own interests and values. Inspired by Simon Sinek’s framework, career decision-making should begin with “why” (your purpose), followed by “how” (skills and values), and—only then—“what” (your profession or output).
Designing a Career, Not Just a Job Search
We must be more intentional about choosing a career path, because work is still important to human flourishing. It fulfils vital needs like status, identity, purpose, and livelihood. A thoughtful career choice can create meaning and fulfilment; the wrong fit can just as easily lead to distress, hardship, and even exploitation.
Therefore, the career exploration stage becomes a fundamental part of the journey for anyone deciding on their career direction. Career exploration should be approached as long-term "career design", not merely a short-term job search strategy. Many people end up choosing jobs based on criteria that look impressive from the outside—like titles that are “proud to mention on LinkedIn” or positions that “look great on a résumé.” Yet, these factors rarely lead to genuine satisfaction. We need to recognise that not everyone can be a dog, and not everyone can be a fish. Failing to assess ourselves during career exploration often leads people to work only for a pay cheque—without fulfilment or satisfaction in their careers.
Career Anchors: A Compass for Fulfillment
Edgar H. Schein introduces the concept of a career anchor, which is a self-concept that acts as both a guide and constraint in career decisions. Think of your career anchor as a personal compass: it directs you toward roles where you can feel truly fulfilled, even when organisational maps (or official job descriptions) point in many different directions. This “career map” helps individuals identify whose expectations they need to meet and provides guidance on dealing with role conflict, ambiguity, and overload. The goal is to match your anchor with a role’s requirements; if there’s a mismatch, you may need to seek a new position, craft your current job for a better fit, or develop new skills.
A career anchor represents the evolving self-concept of an individual in relation to work. It answers the essential question: “If I had to make a choice, what would I never give up?” A career anchor typically integrates several elements:
A preferred type of work into the decision-making process.
How a person wishes to be managed.
The rewards they aspire to achieve are also important considerations.
They also need to consider how they intend to grow and develop in the future.
Career anchors are complex but distinct patterns, woven from individual interests, abilities, needs, motives, and values. The eight anchors, defined by what the person would not relinquish, are:
General Managerial Competence (GM): Not giving up the opportunity to direct the activities of others and advance to higher levels in an organisation.
Technical Functional Competence (TF): Not giving up the opportunity to apply and sharpen one’s skills in a specific line of work.
Entrepreneurial Creativity (EC): Not giving up the opportunity to create an enterprise or organisation of one’s own.
Autonomy/Independence (AU): Not giving up the opportunity to define one’s own work in one’s own way.
Security/Stability (SE): Not giving up the opportunity to have employment certainty or tenure in a job.
Service/Dedication to a Cause (SV): Not giving up the opportunity to pursue work that contributes something of value to the larger society.
Pure Challenge (CH): Not giving up the opportunity to work on solutions to difficult problems, win over opponents, or overcome difficult obstacles.
Lifestyle (LS): Not giving up the opportunity to integrate and balance personal and family needs while meeting work career requirements
The real benefit for individuals lies in achieving personal insight into their "inner career"—a unique combination of self-perceived competencies, motives, and values. By clarifying one’s dominant anchor—that is, answering the crucial question of what you "would not give up" if forced to choose—people gain a stable guide and constraint for their career choices. This kind of clarity helps people steer clear of jobs or environments that don’t fit their values—which means they make choices that feel right for them, and end up enjoying their work more.
References
Robertson, P. J., et al. (Eds.). (2020). The Oxford handbook of career development. Oxford University Press. (Source for the chapter "Authentic Education for Meaningful Work: Beyond “Career Management Skills”" by R. G. Sultana)
Schein, E. H., & Van Maanen, J. (2013). Career anchors: The changing nature of work and careers (4th ed.). Wiley. (The foundational text for the career anchor research, cited in the bibliography of the Schein & Van Maanen journal article.)
Harvard Business Review. (2020). Managing your career. Harvard Business Review Press.
Harvard Business Review. (2022). Taking charge of your career. Harvard Business Review Press.
