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Career Research IResearchNet Custom Writing Services Career Assessment Career Counseling Career Development Career Fields Career Information Custom Writing Services How to Write a Research Paper Research Paper Topics Research Paper Examples Order Career Definition Derived from Latin and French, the term career originally denoted a pathway or racecourse; the course or rapid motion of people, horses, hawks, heavenly bodies; or a course of action. By the early nineteenth century, it had taken on some of today’s meanings and since then has come to refer to some key features of Western society. It is now called into use in a variety of ways in several domains, for different purposes, from different perspectives, and with different underlying assumptions. These diverse uses create many contextualized meanings so that career is not a uni­versally definable concept, but a range of constructs, often with some elements in common. These many meanings endow career with a multilayered richness, although this can make the term ambiguous and even ambivalent and necessitates care in interpreting any specific use of the word. Today’s greater international interchange on career matters also hinders translation of the term into other languages. Constructs of Career A few examples can be used to show how meanings of career vary both between and within different domains. However, the word career is often not clearly defined, even in academic usage, and is frequently interchanged with the term vocational; and when it is used to modify other terms, such as development or guidance, the meaning of the term is generally taken for granted. Career is a familiar term in lay language, in which it is used to denote, among other things, individual work histories, sequences of and patterns in occupations and work positions, and upward progress in an occupation or in life generally. Characteristically, it is differentiated from just a job” and applied particularly to the work history and progress of professionals, managers, and other elites. However, it may also be used more generally to refer to a biography or life history or as an overarching construct to make sense of life. Constructs of career are used in several academic disciplines, such as sociology, labor economics, vocational and career psychology, and work psychology. For example, career is used in a range of sociological explanations. From the perspective of those interested in the role of occupations in social stratification and mobility, career choice is construed in terms of influences and constraints on the individual, such as family of origin, education, race, ethnicity, and gender. Other sociologists who use the construct of career in studying organizations see it in terms of, for example, career patterns, trajectories, contingencies, turning points, the accumulation of cultural capital, and issues of power and control in and over employees. A different perspective on career was taken by the early-twentieth-century Chicago sociologists, whose work has become classic in career literature. They saw it as the transitions made by individuals in a wide range of contexts, not just in occupations or organizations, and their ethnographic research suggested that individuals develop both their identities and their roles as they move through a series of status passages. Hence, their construct of career fuses objective and subjective and plays a recursive role in linking individuals to institutions and structure. Very different constructs are to be found in vocational and career psychology. Here, the emphasis is on the individual, and there is limited concern for wider contextual factors and their constraints and opportunities for the individual. However, the effects of race, ethnicity, class, and gender are now receiving greater acknowledgment. Career has particular significance in this domain, and only a few of the most commonly found constructs can be noted here. One focuses on the congruence of person and occupation, using the differentialist, trait-and-factor approach that matches individual traits, abilities, and dispositions to the demands of occupations. Another frames career in terms of the implementation of the individual’s self-concept and development through life, recognizing the stages, tasks, context of development, and career maturity. Other constructs view career in terms of individual agency, social learning, information processing, planning, and decision making. Others focus on how people make sense of their experiences and construct meaning through actions, narrative, and metaphor. Further constructs of career are used in work (industrial, occupational, organizational) psychology, where career is construed in terms of the relationship between (a) the individual and the organization and (b) the influence of the structure and dynamics of the organization, the design of jobs, the reward system, performance management, managerial style, and control. Career is also a key construct in several areas of practice. In career guidance and counseling, career choice and development are construed in terms of how people can both fit into society and fulfill themselves by entering appropriate jobs and developing themselves further through their work. Constructs focus on the need, formerly of young people and now increasingly of adults as well, to gain appropriate information about occupational opportunities and constraints, be aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, make realistic decisions in the light of these, and become empowered in their work lives. More recent national priorities have introduced another construct of career that is concerned less with clients’ fulfillment than with their employability, achieved by developing themselves and managing their careers. In education, constructs of career have traditionally been used in addressing the transition from school to work, but now increasing concern about the relevance of all levels of education for the world of work highlights the significance of educational and career choices. Constructs focusing on informed, realistic decision making are used directly by career guidance specialists and indirectly in the school and higher-education curriculum material designed to increase awareness of work-life issues. In human resource management, which aims to achieve the effective performance of an organization through its employees, the construct of career represents the engagement of the individual with the organization. From this perspective, career plays a part in organizational reward and control systems, and career management is more than people managing their own careers. It refers to how managers attempt to influence their employees’ careers in the interest of both individuals and organizations by planning, facilitating, and monitoring employees’ progress through the organization and by specific interventions. Here, constructs of career development concern what organizational experiences and sequence of jobs will best develop, motivate, and retain employees and what personal investment in skills they will need to make. In the domain of public policy, career is used primarily to modify terms such as education and guidance. Faced with the need for new skills, adaptability, and redeployment in their workforces and with the problems caused by unemployment and social exclusion, governments in the industrialized world today are concerned with developing human capital. Government perspective on career guidance is that it has a key role in helping labor markets work effectively in the interests of national competitiveness and in helping education systems meet their goals, promoting equity, combating the negative effects of social exclusion, and supporting lifelong learning. It is needed not only by young people entering the labor market but also by adults throughout their working lives, so that people need to develop the skills not just of initial decision making but also...