What happened to your calling? The development of calling across college-to-work transition

Abstract

Career calling is a pervasive, purposeful, and passion-driven approach to work that is central to the individuals’ identity, contributes to the greater good, transcends their self and for which they are willing to make sacrifices. Research on the dynamics of career calling has grown exponentially, but clarity on whether and how a career calling changes during key life transitions is still lacking. In this article, the results of a two-wave study are reported in which changes in perceiving a calling, living out a calling, and calling motivation were compared across groups of college students (n = 781), college-to-work transitioners (n = 143), and workers (n = 270). The results show that perceiving a calling is stable for students, decreases during college-to-work transitions, and slightly increases for workers. Living out a calling is stable for students, decreases during college-to-work transitioners, and slightly decreases for workers. Motivation to pursue one’s calling is stable in all groups and higher for students entering the job market. Workers have lower levels of perceiving and living out a calling than students. The implications of these results are discussed.