UC Santa Barbara

Changes to the way work is performed over the past several decades due to economic recessions, unstable job markets, and global turmoil facilitated by COVID-19 call for research into the way today’s young adults idealize, evaluate, and select careers. Informed by the theory of vocational anticipatory socialization, this study surveyed university students through a series of open- and closed-ended questions to investigate how they think about “making a living”. This project also explores the career frameworks young adults use to evaluate potential careers, compares them to the ability, enjoyment, and goal frameworks identified by Jahn and Myers (2014), and takes a step towards validating a career frameworks scale. Content analysis of open-ended responses indicate that compensation, work-life balance, making a difference in society, company or workplace culture, stability, and continuous learning opportunity are common motivating factors in career or job selection. Content analysis also identified ability, enjoyment, goal-identity, and goal-lifestyle frameworks informing young adults’ career pursuits, which differed in form and frequency from Jahn and Myers (2014) original work. Confirmatory factor analysis did not confirm predicted components, but exploratory factor analysis revealed emergent factors. Several theoretical and practical implications are discussed as well as limitations and suggestions for future research.