An Empirical Study on Career Anchor Congruence of Various Professionals of North Karnataka

The fast changing organizational contexts have forced career management as essential ingredient for success. Today career are the whole responsibility of the individuals and not the organizations. The present study aims at understanding the congruence between career anchors and present job held by individual. Edgar schiens Career orientation Inventory (COI) is used as the research instrument. This study investigates the career anchors held by teachers, managers, engineers, entrepreneurs and government employees. Entrepreneurial creativity and sense of service are the dominant anchors across gender, age groups and professions. Life style and general management are the lowest scoring anchors. Thus employers or the organizations have to give room for creative ideas to flow in, rather than routine jobs. To enhance job satisfaction the organizations have to include creativity as one of the performance parameter. In the Indian context it is more necessary to view career options more seriously. Career should not be a bunch of accidents as it is perceived now. Career should be based on ones aspirations goals and anchors. Organizations or employers, on the other hand, can use career anchors as one of the tools to identify employee potential leading to greater goal congruence and satisfaction.