Career - Reasons Why People Change Careers - Career Choice Theories

Career Choice Theories

According to Behling and others, an individuals decision to join a firm may depend on any of the three factors viz. objective factor, subjective factor and critical contact.

  • Objective factor theory assumes that the applicants are rational. The choice, therefore, is exercised after an objective assessment of the tangible benefits of the job. The factors helping him choose may be the salary, other benefits, location, opportunities for career advancement etc.
  • Subjective factor theory suggests that decision making is dominated by social and psychological factors. The status of the job, reputation of the organization and other similar factors plays an important role.
  • Critical contact theory advances the idea that a candidate's observerations during his interaction with the organization plays a vital role in decision making. For example how the recruiter keeps in touch with the candidate, the promptness of response and similar factors are important. This theory is more valid with experienced professionals.

Read more about this topic:  Career, Reasons Why People Change Careers

Famous quotes containing the words career, choice and/or theories:

    “Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.
    Lawrence Kutner (20th century)

    Nobody is so constituted as to be able to live everywhere and anywhere; and he who has great duties to perform, which lay claim to all his strength, has, in this respect, a very limited choice. The influence of climate upon the bodily functions ... extends so far, that a blunder in the choice of locality and climate is able not only to alienate a man from his actual duty, but also to withhold it from him altogether, so that he never even comes face to face with it.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    Generalisation is necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularly is indispensable to the creations of the imagination. In proportion as men know more and think more they look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore make better theories and worse poems.
    Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)