Personal Values Assessment

The Values Assessment is based on Shalom Schwartz's Theory of Basic Human Values, one of the most widely researched frameworks in cross-cultural psychology. It identifies 10 universal value types organized in a circular structure where adjacent values are compatible and opposing values create tension.

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.

Schwartz's ten values collapse into two higher-order tensions that explain a lot about what pulls you in different directions. The first is Openness to Change (self-direction, stimulation) versus Conservation (security, conformity, tradition), novelty and independence against stability and order. The second is Self-Enhancement (achievement, power) versus Self-Transcendence (benevolence, universalism), pursuing your own success against caring for others and the wider world. Because the values sit on a circle, strengthening one side naturally pulls against its opposite, which is why no one can max out everything at once and why your particular trade-offs are so revealing.