According to Kerckhoff (1996), the less vocationally specific
the training and credential provided by the secondary education
structure, the more floundering and turbulent is the early career. In
the more general systems, lacking formal differentiation in prepa-
ration or credentials, young entrants to the labor force must explore
different jobs to find out what they are most interested in doing, and
employers must try out a diversity of job-seekers, many of whom
might be ill suited for the jobs at hand.
These cross-national differences have much relevance for career
choice processes and development. Because high school education
is not vocationally specific in the United States, and increasing pro-
portions of young people seek higher education (more than two-
thirds of high school graduates in recent cohorts; see Kerckhoff,
2002), contemporary adolescents in the United States tend to have
vague notions about occupational choice and little understanding
of the kinds of credentials that are necessary to enter particular
types of jobs (Schneider & Stevenson, 1999). In Germany, in con-
trast, adolescents make special efforts to seek information about the
various kinds of occupations for which they can be trained, prior to
their apprenticeship. The school encourages this process of explo-
ration by providing career information and “trial” apprenticeship
placements (Mortimer & Kruger, 2000).
Of course, important cross-national differences constrain career
choice—differences in the extent of economic development, the
range of occupations and industries a person may choose to enter,
and the ensuing prospects for occupational careers. The fit between
educational systems and occupational structures is a pervasive,
worldwide issue that takes different forms in different contexts
(Shanahan, Mortimer, & Kruger, 2002). Some Western commen-
tators worry that young people are given insufficient vocational
guidance by their high school teachers and counselors, so they
make less effective use of postsecondary educational resources than
they would if they had a greater sense of direction (Schneider &
Stevenson, 1999). In contrast, young people in some developing
countries, such as India, where educational opportunities are very
42 CAREER CHOICE AND DEVELOPMENT