About this assessment

Personal Values Assessment

30 questions7 min

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FreeInstant results · 7 min

What Is the Values Assessment?

The Values Assessment is JobCannon's own work-values instrument. It maps ten values that shape working life — Achievement, Autonomy, Creativity, Security, Altruism, Recognition, Relationships, Learning, Work-Life Balance and Impact — by making you choose between them instead of rating each one on its own. Each of the 30 questions puts four things people genuinely want in front of you and lets you keep only one, so what comes back is a ranking of what you trade away when you cannot have everything.

Understanding your core values is essential for making aligned career and life decisions. When your work matches your values, you experience greater satisfaction, motivation, and meaning. When there's a mismatch, you feel drained and unfulfilled, regardless of salary or status. JobCannon's 30-question assessment maps your personal value hierarchy and shows how it connects to career choices, workplace culture fit, and life priorities.

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Because every question forces a choice, the revealing part of your result is not which values you endorse — nearly everyone endorses all ten — but which ones you let go to keep the others. Achievement and Work-Life Balance are set against each other in 28 of the 30 questions, so your ranking on those two is decided many times over. Creativity and Security compete in 13 questions, Altruism and Recognition in 11, Autonomy and Security in 9. Where you land is the sum of thirty small refusals rather than a single declaration, which is why the profile often disagrees with the values people say they hold.

What You'll Discover

Your top 3 core values and what they mean for your life direction

Which workplace cultures and company types align with your values

Where your values may conflict and how to navigate those tensions

Career paths that naturally fulfill your deepest motivations

The trade-offs you made, which values you gave up to protect your top three

A full ranking across all 10 work values, not only your top three

What a Question Looks Like

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How It Works

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30 questions, 7 min. Auto-advance — no manual Next.
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Instant breakdown of your profile. Free, shareable, saved if you sign in.
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Frequently Asked Questions

What does the Values Assessment measure?

Ten values that shape working life: Achievement, Autonomy, Creativity, Security, Altruism, Recognition, Relationships, Learning, Work-Life Balance and Impact. It never asks you to rate a value on its own, because almost everyone rates all ten highly. Instead it makes you choose between them 30 times, and the ranking falls out of those choices.

What are the 10 values it measures?

Achievement, the drive to excel and hit measurable targets. Autonomy, freedom to decide how, when and where you work. Creativity, the need to build, design and express original ideas. Security, stability, predictability and financial safety. Altruism, helping others and making an impact beyond your paycheck. Recognition, being seen and credited for your contributions. Relationships, deep connections with colleagues, mentors and clients. Learning, growth, mastery and work that keeps teaching you something new. Work-Life Balance, clear boundaries between work and personal life. Impact, seeing tangible results that move the needle. Most people rank several highly and a few low, the pattern is what matters, not any single value.

Is this the Schwartz values test?

No. This is JobCannon's own work-values assessment, built around the ten values that surface in career decisions. Shalom Schwartz's Theory of Basic Human Values measures a different ten — Self-Direction, Stimulation, Hedonism, Achievement, Power, Security, Conformity, Tradition, Benevolence and Universalism — and we run that as a separate test, the Schwartz Values Test (PVQ-21). If you came for Schwartz specifically, take that one. If you want your values framed around work and career, stay here.

Why do personal values matter for career choices?

Research links value-career alignment to long-term job satisfaction. People who work in environments that match their core values report higher engagement, lower burnout, and greater sense of purpose.

How are values different from interests or personality?

Interests (measured by RIASEC) are what you enjoy doing; personality (Big Five) is how you characteristically think and behave; values are what you believe is important and worth pursuing. You can be interested in a field, suited to it by temperament, and still feel hollow if it violates your values. That's why pairing this with RIASEC and the Big Five gives the fullest career picture.

Can my values change over time?

Your sense of what matters is reasonably stable, but it moves with life stage and big events — a child, a burnout, a promotion that turned out to be the wrong prize. Values you could not afford to act on at 25 often climb the list once you can. Retaking this every couple of years is a quick way to notice whether your work still matches who you have become.

Is the Values Assessment free on JobCannon?

Taking it is free and your ranked values appear on screen, with no signup required. The full value profile, career alignment insights and workplace culture recommendations are part of Premium.

Values Assessment