Online Career Tools: Career Values Activity for Lawyers Considering Career Change
The corporate placement firm, Stewart, Cooper & Coon has an online version of Richard Knowdell’s Career Values Card Sort. The Career Values Card Sort involves sorting a set of cards with 54 defined values into five categories ranging from “always valued” to “never valued.” Once you prioritize your values, you may use the values you ranked the highest to help you evaluate career decisions that are under consideration. This online version includes a worksheet where you list a single career decision, list your eight highest-ranked values, and then write about how that value is applicable to your career decision. Then, you examine which values are in conflict with your career decision and brainstorm how to resolve those value conflicts. A sample worksheet, along with blank downloadable worksheets, may be found here.
I did this exercise about a year ago during a workshop that I attended about Career Values. (You can buy the cards and workbook at careertrainer.com.) At the time, I listed these values as my top eight:
- Work-Life Balance
- Location
- Family
- Fun & Humor
- Creativity
- Change & Variety
- Honesty & Integrity
- Creative Expression
Values can change over time, so it is probably time for me to do this exercise again. Looking at this now, I’m not really sure why I ranked Fun & Humor so highly. Although I definitely like having fun, I’m not sure that it makes my top eight “always valued” values. On the other hand, my top three values - Work-Life Balance, Location and Family - would all likely continue to be in my top eight values today.
Overall, I found this exercise helpful, although the online version I’ve linked to here is somewhat more limited than the paper-based Career Values workbook that I used in the workshop I attended. The workbook includes several supplementary activities about your highest career values, including activities reflecting on times in the past when you have been able to exercise your highest career values freely, how your career values have changed over time, and how “in charge” you feel of building your highest career values into your life.
What do you think of the Career Values Card Sort activity? Is it a useful tool in helping to define your career change choices?
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