Making Career Decisions-A Sequential Elimination Approach

This article presents a model for career decision making based on the sequential elimination of occupational alternatives, which is an adaptation for career decisions of Tversky's (1972) elimination-by-aspects theory of choice. Each occupational alternative is viewed as a set of aspects, and at each stage an aspect is selected according to its importance, and alternatives lacking the selected aspect are eliminated. This process continues until only a few alternatives, or a single alternative, remain. The expected utility approach is reviewed as a representative compensatory model for career decisions. The advantages and the disadvantages of the sequential elimination and the expected utility approaches are examined. Finally, the possible combination of the two approaches is explored, and the implications for career counseling, computerized career decision-making systems, and research issues are discussed.