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Values & Career Choice Happiness – Part 1

Close your eyes and picture these things.  What is most important to you?  What do you want to get out of a career or internship?  What do you want your work to look like? If you struggled with this exercise, know that you are not alone.  

These are big, but essential questions that get to what you value most about your work experience in life.  Values are such strong, core beliefs that they guide your actions.  It’s important to spend some time identifying and articulating your values as they can bring higher levels of satisfaction and ultimately happiness to your work and overall life.  We often classify values in 2 ways:

  • Intrinsic Values- What you are doing on a daily basis- managing others, solving problems, being creative, etc.
  • Extrinsic Values- What you receive as a result of your work- economic return, job security, recognition/prestige, etc.

Completing a values sorting exercise is a good way to identify your core values so that you can begin to articulate them to potential employers in order to find a good match.  There is a Values Assessment exercise available here that requires a registration, but is otherwise free.  You can also contact the Center for Career Advancement to complete a values sorting exercise or discuss your results with a Career Counselor. To make an appointment visit this page (myBucknell login required).

Thanks to our career counselor/coach Rachel Redmond this journey into discovering and identifying values.

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