What it measures
Everyone has one dominant anchor. Identify yours — and stop making career decisions that conflict with it.
Driven by mastery and expertise in your field.
Energized by leading people, resources, and complexity.
Prioritizing predictability, continuity, and reliable work.
Needing to create new things — organizations, products, processes.
Needing freedom to define your own work in your own way.
Integrating work with personal values, family, and interests.
Driven by contributing to something larger than yourself.
Motivated by overcoming increasingly difficult problems.
Career anchors are the values, motives and needs that you would not give up if forced to make a choice. Edgar Schein, professor emeritus at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, developed the Career Anchors model through decades of longitudinal research with MBA graduates. His central finding: each person has one dominant anchor — and when their career conflicts with it, dissatisfaction is inevitable regardless of salary, title or prestige.
The metaphor of an “anchor” is precise. An anchor doesn’t restrict your movement — it defines the point you always return to. You can drift away in pursuit of a promotion or a higher salary, but at some level you will always feel the pull back. Career anchors explain why high achievers take a step down, why entrepreneurs can’t stay employed, and why some people are happiest as deep specialists even when management beckons.
Your results show your relative score across all 8 anchors. The anchor with your highest score is where you should focus most attention. A score above 85% indicates a strong anchor that will create real dissatisfaction if ignored. Between 65–85% suggests a significant value that shapes your preferences. Below 65% means the anchor plays a smaller role for you personally.
The most useful application: before your next major career decision, ask yourself — does this role serve my top anchor? If the answer is clearly no, be honest about the long-term cost.
Free. 15 minutes. Based on 50 years of MIT career research.
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