Uncovering career anchor preferences of the Indian workforce

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the career anchors of the Indian professionals. Edgar Schein’s career anchor survey was customized to the Indian context by adding a 9th career anchor. This survey was administered to 86 urban Indian professionals and the results were analyzed. It was identified that the professionals in the sample had an inclination towards pure challenge and lifestyle-oriented careers. They had a lower preference for the organizational identity anchor. However, there was a significant difference in the anchors across gender, age and area of work.