Having a Calling during University-to-Work Transition: Analyses of Changes in Career Calling and Calling Motivation

Career calling is a pervasive, purposeful and passion-driven engagement in a life domain that individuals feel called to pursue, for which they are willing to make sacrifices, that contributes to the greater good and to individuals’ identity. Even if empirical investigations about calling are growing fast, whether and how calling changes during key transitions throughout a person’s working life is currently an open question. In a two-wave study involving 1,082 college students, we analyzed how calling and motivation to pursue one’s calling changes during university-to-work transition. "is study showed that calling decreases only in students who are entering the job market. On the contrary, their motivation to pursue their calling is stable during university-to-work transition, and higher when entering the job market. Workers have a lower level of calling and lower motivation to pursue one’s calling than students. Future development and theoretical and practical implication of these results are discussed.