ABSTRACT

This chapter examines several critical steps in the career management process. It discusses different views on the occupational choice process, or how people go about finding a suitable occupation, hopefully one that fits their personal characteristics. The chapter also examines several obstacles to occupational decision-making and offers recommendations for improving the process. It also discusses how individuals choose an organization in which to work and how they cross the boundary from outside to inside the organization. The chapter presents four significant themes that can help us understand the manner in which people make occupational choices and explores the variety of psychological, social, economic, and cultural factors that enter into occupational decisions. The occupational decisions are: occupational choice as a matching process; occupational choice as a developmental process; occupational choice as a decision-making task; and occupational choice as a function of social and cultural influences.