Job and Career Crafting to Fulfill Individual Career Pathways

Abstract Individuals can proactively craft their careers by shaping both their individual jobs and the series of jobs or roles that comprise their career journeys. This chapter illustrates how being proactive at one’s job (i.e., job crafting) may allow individuals to achieve better jobs for themselves and how being competent with regard to one’s career (i.e., career competencies) may help individuals better proactively navigate their careers, which is referred to as career crafting. Drawing on the parallel with the literatures on job crafting, career competencies, and career self-management, this chapter introduces career crafting as a valuable new variable for career research. Career crafting is defined as proactive behaviors that individuals perform to self-manage their careers to attain optimal person–career fit. The chapter also presents the Career Crafting Survey, which can be used in future research to further accumulate knowledge about how and when career crafting may help individuals achieve successful and fulfilling careers.