The most common theoretical approach to career has been objective in nature, working within the framework of either the career pattern or the individual-objective career. The widespread inclusion of subjective data and discussion in studies and discourses on career suggests that a clearer statement of this idea and its integration with the objective approaches is desirable. Thus, working from the assumption that any personal view of one's career has predispositional qualifies in it, we set out to explore the nature of the subjective career and to relate it to the traditional objective notions. Career as predisposition, it was hypothesized, involves recognition and interpretation of certain features of a career line and an individualobjective career that results in a particular kind of knowledge and a particular view of the world. When activated in an ongoing social situation, the personal view of one's career influences behavior through this perspective and simultaneously heightens one's awareness of it. Several ways are suggested in which the subjective career might be activated, thereby stimulating awareness of it: experiencing contingencies, terminating a career, comparing our progress with that of others, bargaining over status passage, integrating our several concurrently functioning careers, and formulating and implementing career strategies. Phenomenally, the subjective career overlaps in scope with its career line and individual-objective career. Theoretically, it is exclusive of these other approaches; it is a personal extension and amplification of the individual's view of these more objective manifestations of career. The subjective career is composed of both the more private meanings of such phenomena as stages, timing and direction of movement, alter- native career lines, recruitment, contingencies and so forth, and of meanings not represented in the objective stances. The explanatory utility of subjective career becomes apparent when personal interpretation enters the picture and modifies behavior from what would be predicted on the basis of the objective approaches. As a predisposition it may be seen as part of the set of factors which influences a person's definition of the situation. The strength of this approach lies in the fact that it enables us to study the personal evaluation of the elements of career life and its associated meanings at the situational level. All three perspectives on career, the career line, the individualobjective career, and the subjective career, can be generalized beyond their traditional field of application, the sociology of occupations. In some areas like deviance, beginning and end points and career stages may not, upon further study, turn out to be as clear as in other areas. The subjective career assumes even greater importance here since it enables us to gain a sense of career in spite of this lack of clarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]