CHOICE OF PROFESSION AS PART OF CAREER PLANNING AND FACTORS AFFECTING UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT PREFERENCE: A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

The factors influencing the choice of profession, one of the stages of career planning, are scrutinized in this study. The study's primary purpose is to define the factors affecting the choice of profession and contribute to universities' promotion and marketing activities. Within the scope of the research, focus group interviews were performed with undergraduate students, and the data acquired were analyzed using the grounded theory. According to the analysis results, the factors affecting the choice of a profession were reported by reducing to two themes and five categories. Accordingly, environmental factors, marketing activities, social media, obligations, and personal factors were determined as the main factors affecting the choice of profession. In the light of the findings, valuable suggestions have been put forward for universities as part of institutions and academicians working on choice of profession, and university department preferences, which is a decisive stage of career choice. In this day and age, where individual behaviors and social understandings are constantly altering/transforming, the fact that the factors affecting the choice of a profession also change daily shows that studies and research on this subject should be continually updated. This study is considered to make a genuine contribution to the literature as one of the current research.