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As young individuals transition from educational settings to embark on their career paths, their expectations for their future careers become of paramount importance. Ng et al. (2010) examined the expectations of young people in post-secondary education in 2007; those colloquially referred to as “Millennials” or “GenY”. The present study replicates Ng et al.'s (2010) study among a sample of post-secondary students in 2019 (referred to as Generation Z or GenZ) and compares the expectations of young adults in GenY and GenZ.

This study employs a time-lag comparison of GenY and GenZ young career entrants based on data collected in 2007 (n = 23,413) and 2019 (n = 16,146).

Today's youth seem to have realistic expectations for their first jobs and the analyses suggest that young people continue to seek positive, healthy work environments which make room for work–life balance. Further, young people today are prioritizing job security and are not necessarily mobile due to preference, restlessness or disloyalty, but rather leave employers that are not meeting their current needs or expectations.

Understanding the career expectations of young people allows educators, employers and policymakers to provide vocational guidance that aligns those expectations with the realities of the labor market and the contemporary career context.

While GenY was characterized as optimistic with great expectations, GenZ can be described as cautious and pragmatic. The results suggest a shift away from opportunity, towards security, stability, an employer that reflects one's values and a job that is satisfying in the present.

This study investigates the relationship between “new career” profiles (Briscoe and Hall, 2006) and two sets of career factors: agency (i.e. career commitment, self-efficacy, and work locus of control), and career attitudes (i.e. salience and satisfaction). Thus, the purpose of this paper is to understand whether career profiles are a valuable way to understand careers in the modern career era, and if so, which profiles exist, and what differences exist across the profiles.

The participants in this study were 1,987 managers and professionals, recruited from a large database of potential respondents. Cluster analysis determined which profiles were apparent among the participants through a two-step clustering procedure using the Bayesian information criterion algorithm. The authors then compared the clusters using analysis of variance (ANOVA) with cluster membership as the independent variable and the career agency and attitude variables and age as the dependent variables.

Cluster analysis of the protean and boundaryless career attitudes of 1,987 respondents identified three career profiles: Trapped/Lost, Protean Career Architects, and Solid Citizens. ANOVA confirmed that people indicative of the three profiles differed significantly on all study variables. The findings suggest that the three different career profiles predict important differences in career variables and outcomes that are relevant to individual progression and growth needs and may be a valuable way to study contemporary careers. In particular, the person-centred approach acknowledges that the protean and boundaryless career concepts are related though distinct concepts that can be combined to show that individuals vary in the degree to which their career orientations are consistent with contemporary career constructs.

The authors have demonstrated that career profiles are a meaningful way to categorize career actors on the basis of their career orientation, as well as their scores on a host of important career variables. Although the study benefits from a large sample and a valid measure of career profiles, it does have some limitations. First, the authors relied on self-reported data gathered on a single survey questionnaire. Furthermore, because the study is cross-sectional, the authors cannot examine the long-term impact of career profile on outcomes such as career satisfaction or if career profiles are enduring or malleable over time.

From a practical perspective, it may be incumbent on organizations, career counsellors and individuals to develop an awareness to which career profile individuals belong (DeFillippi and Arthur, 1996). Doing so may offer insight into the likely challenges that career actors will face as their career unfolds, and ideally help individuals develop career management strategies to create career growth, rather than a more passive and reactive approach. A number of implications for each of the three career profiles are offered within the paper.

Utilizing a two-step clustering procedure, the authors provide empirical evidence of three of the 16 career profiles proposed by Briscoe and Hall (2006): Trapped/Lost, Protean Career Architects and Solid Citizens. Next, the authors explored the utility of the profiles for career development and demonstrated significant differences in career-related psychological factor and attitudes across profiles. Finally, the authors take a person-centric approach to career orientation, allowing for individual differences in career enactment. Overall, the results of this study show that career profiles are a highly useful composite that reflect important patterns relative to new career variables.

Popular literature argues that successive generations are experiencing more job changes and changes of employer. The “new careers” literature also proposes that career mobility patterns are becoming more diverse as people engage in more downward and lateral job changes and changes of occupation. The purpose of this paper is to test these assertions by comparing the career mobility patterns across four generations of workers.

The authors analyzed the career mobility patterns of four generations of Canadian professionals (n=2,555): Matures (born prior to 1946); Baby Boomers (1946-1964); Generation Xers (1965-1979) and Millennials (1980 or later). Job mobility, organizational mobility and the direction of job moves were compared across groups through analysis of variance.

Significant differences were observed in job mobility and organizational mobility of the various generations, with younger generations being more mobile. However, despite significant environmental shifts, the diversity of career patterns has not undergone a significant shift from generation to generation.

This is the first quantitative study to examine shifting career mobility patterns across all four generations in today’s workplace. The authors extend previous research on generational differences in job mobility by using novel measures of career mobility that are more precise than extant measures.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether work values vary across different life and career stages in a sample of Millennials.

The sample for this study was comprised of 906 Canadian Millennials (born between 1980 and 1994).

Pre-career and working Millennials varied in terms of the importance they placed on five work values – interesting work, achievement, good co-workers, doing work that helped people and salary – although these differences were small in magnitude. This suggests that Millennials’ work values are relatively stable as they grow older and gain work experience.

A large body of research citing generational differences relies upon cross-sectional studies which compares different generations of individuals at different life stages, thus making it impossible to disentangle whether the differences are a result of generational or life-cycle effects. The findings that the importance of work values shift over the life course suggest that maturation effects may explain only a small portion of these differences in the emerging adulthood phase. This finding is particularly important for researchers who rely on samples of post-secondary students as this is a period of change from both an individual and career developmental perspective.

This research suggests that pre-career Millennials may be attracted to organizations which emphasize a collegial work environment and socially responsible culture. Once they are in the workforce, Millennials can be attracted and retained through attractive working conditions and remuneration. All Millennials are most likely to be attracted to workplaces that provide interesting work, work-life balance, job security and the information workers need to do their jobs effectively.

Developmental psychology and career development literature suggest that transitioning from school-to-work is a major life event. Past research has shown that the importance of work values change across this transition and that this change differs among social generations (i.e. Baby Boomers and Generation Xers), but research to date has not examined this transition in the current, millennial generation (born after 1980). We answer the call for researchers to understand Millennials as they progress in their careers, demonstrate that the shift in work values is different for Millennials, and provide actionable recommendations for managers.