ABSTRACT
A recent chapter reviewing empirical job choice research (Highhouse & Hoffman, 2001) emphasized the need to integrate insights from the judgment and decision making (JDM) literature and to explore more fully job seekers’ perspectives, rather than focusing so heavily on employers’ concerns. In the decade since, these recommendations have proven prescient. The developed nations have weathered a series of financial bubbles (e.g., mortgage and housing meltdown, sovereign and municipal debt crises) that first shrank unemployment rates to unimaginably low levels and then threw millions of employees out of work while making jobs scarce for millions more new labor market entrants and job changers. This global phenomenon highlights a pressing need to understand job seekers’ and decision makers’ perspectives and choices not just when alternatives are plentiful and attractive, but also when they are distasteful or not easily comparable (e.g., take a position below one’s capabilities, continue to search, retire early, get more education, start a business).
