career

A career is an individual's metaphorical "journey" through learning, work and other aspects of life. There are a number of ways to define career and the term is used in a variety of ways.

==Definitions == The Oxford English Dictionary defines "career" as a person's "course or progress through life (or a distinct portion of life)". This definition relates "career" to a range of aspects of an individual's life, learning, and work. "Career" is also frequently understood to relate to the working aspects of an individual's life - as in "career woman", for example. A third way in which the term "career" is used describes an occupation or a profession that usually involves specific training and/or formal education, considered to be a person's lifework. In this case "a career" is seen as a sequence of related jobs, usually pursued within a single industry or sector: one can speak for example of "a career in education", of "a criminal career" or of "a career in the building trade". A career has been defined by organizational behavior researchers as "an individual's work-related and other relevant experiences, both inside and outside of organizations, that form a unique pattern over the individual's life span."