Example deliverable
Career Anchors
This is an illustrative example of the format the person receives. The actual content is built from the information submitted.
Career Anchors Report · Carolina Ribeiro
Your top anchor
General Management
Complementary anchor
Autonomy/Independence
Your ranking across the 8 anchors
Average from 1 to 10. The first two are your primary anchors.
- General Management 8.8
- Autonomy/Independence 8.2
- Pure Challenge 7.6
- Technical/Functional Competence 6.8
- Entrepreneurial Creativity 6.2
- Service/Dedication to a Cause 5.4
- Security/Stability 4.8
- Lifestyle 4.2
What General Management means
In your professional life, this anchor shows up as a wish to take responsibility for a whole result, not only a part of it. Your answers suggest you feel fulfilled when you coordinate people, decide under pressure and see how areas connect. A role restricted to one specialty tends to feel too small for you.
How your top 2 combine
General Management with Autonomy and Independence suggests you want to lead, but with freedom to define how the work gets done. This works well in companies that measure results and leave the method to the leader. The tension appears in structures with many approval levels: you may feel you have the responsibility but not the autonomy to decide.
Your top 3 anchors, in depth
A closer look at what sets you apart
Anchor 1
General Management
Why this is unique for you
In your case, General Management shows up in the combination of leading people with responsibility for numbers. Your answers suggest you feel most motivated when you answer for a whole result, such as a portfolio, a team and a target, rather than an isolated task.
How it combines with your other top anchors
General Management + Autonomy/Independence
General Management with Autonomy and Independence: you want to answer for broad results, but with freedom to choose the method. The best opportunities give you the target and leave the path to you.
General Management + Pure Challenge
General Management with Pure Challenge: you tend to look for bigger responsibilities and harder problems. This drives your career, but it pays to pick the challenges that widen your reach.
Apply your General Management for success
- Ask to take on a target that involves more than one area, such as sales and customer service.
- Record the highest-impact decisions you made in the past year and use them in upcoming career conversations.
Anchor 2
Autonomy/Independence
Why this is unique for you
Your Autonomy and Independence shows up as a preference for being measured by delivery, not by process. You tend to perform best when you can organize your own schedule and decide how to reach the agreed result.
How it combines with your other top anchors
Autonomy/Independence + General Management
Autonomy and Independence with General Management: you want to lead without needing approval for every decision. Management roles with real decision authority fit you better than management roles with tight control.
Autonomy/Independence + Pure Challenge
Autonomy and Independence with Pure Challenge: you enjoy solving hard problems your own way. Projects with an open scope and a fixed deadline are usually a good fit.
Apply your Autonomy/Independence for success
- Agree measurable targets with your manager and ask for freedom to define the method.
- In future offers, negotiate the work format and the level of decision-making of the role, not only the salary.
Anchor 3
Pure Challenge
Why this is unique for you
Pure Challenge shows up in your wish to solve problems others consider hard, such as migrating a whole portfolio to a new system or renewing the contract of a client who threatened to leave.
How it combines with your other top anchors
Pure Challenge + General Management
Pure Challenge with General Management: you look for bigger responsibilities because they bring more complex problems. Be careful not to accept every challenge and lose focus on the team’s priorities.
Pure Challenge + Autonomy/Independence
Pure Challenge with Autonomy and Independence: you prefer to face challenges without too much supervision. This works well when the expected result is clear from the start.
Apply your Pure Challenge for success
- Pick one challenge per quarter that widens your responsibility and define how you will measure success.
- After each challenge, record what you learned to use in interviews and promotion conversations.
Where you tend to perform best
- Growing companies that need to structure sales or operations areas
- Coordination, management and director roles with clear targets and freedom of method
- Results-driven businesses where the leader answers for indicators
- Consulting and process-building projects with high autonomy
Watch-outs
- Very hierarchical structures, with many approval levels, tend to create friction
- Staying too long in execution roles, without responsibility for a broad result, may cause frustration
- When seeking constant challenges, check whether the company offers the time and support to deliver them
Questions to reflect on
- In your past career choices, what were you not willing to give up?
- When did you feel most fulfilled at work? What do those moments have in common?
- Does your current role respect your primary anchor? What’s missing?
Next steps
- Use your two anchors as a filter: before accepting an offer, ask whether it gives responsibility for results and freedom to decide how to deliver them.
- In interviews, ask how decisions are made, which approvals are needed and how much the manager decides alone.
- List two responsibilities you would like to take on in the next 12 months and discuss them with your leadership.
- Talk through the result with someone you trust or with a career advisor.
The 8 career anchors
Technical/Functional Competence
Your professional identity comes from being excellent at a specialty.
General Management
You want to integrate people and areas and be accountable for broad results.
Autonomy/Independence
You need to set your own way of working, your own pace and your own standards.
Security/Stability
Predictability and stability are the foundation for you to do your best work.
Entrepreneurial Creativity
You want to create something new that is your own: a product, a service, a business.
Service/Dedication to a Cause
Your work needs to align with your values and create impact.
Pure Challenge
You are driven by overcoming obstacles that seem impossible.
Lifestyle
You want a career that fits into your personal and family life.
About the theory. Edgar H. Schein (1928–2023), PhD in Social Psychology from Harvard and professor emeritus at MIT Sloan School of Management, spent decades studying professionals’ career choices and noticed a pattern: everyone has a combination of skills, motivations and values they won’t give up, even when facing hard choices. He called this a career anchor.
This is a self-assessment questionnaire created by the platform based on this theory. It is not the official inventory published by Schein and is not a psychological test. Use the result as a starting point for reflection, ideally with a career advisor.