Meanings of career success for students and psychology professionals

Abstract

There are several definitions of career success. The objective was to analyze the meaning of career success for students and Psychology professionals. Participants were 656 Brazilians from all regions, who answered an online survey containing a sociodemographic questionnaire and a word association task to define career success. The results were submitted to the Descending Hierarchical Classification, through IRAMUTEQ software. Analysis indicated six lexical classes, grouped into two thematic blocks. Students referred words associated to the theme “Realization of professional activities”. Professionals, on the other hand, evocated more words related to the “Characteristics and Work Relations”. As contributions, we highlight the presentation of how career success is understood by a specific group of professionals, and the need to consider, in career counseling processes, the contextual and life cycle influences on career success.