Career concepts in the 21st century

The consistent and sometimes exaggerated emphasis on the unpredictability of careers these days has prompted an assertion of the need and the capacity of individuals to take control. In turn, this helpfully exposes a number of tensions and ambiguities in the study of ‘career’. These need to be explored rather than bypassed by a new orthodoxy. Exploration can lead to innovative and balanced analyses of how people and their careers develop, how the notion of career success can be construed, how career is an inherently social process, and how career and other arenas of life interact.