MEASURING CAREER STAGE

Age and tenure are inadequate measures of career stage. The use of arb itrary age and tenure groupings as indicators of career stage is theor etically unsound and could lead researchers and career counselors to m ake erroneous conclusions. It has not yet been shown empirically that classifications based on the age or tenure yield groups of individuals with anything in common other than their age and tenure. The purposes of this article are to point out the weaknesses of the psychometric p roperties of age and tenure as career stage measures (i.e., generaliza bility, validity, and reliability) and to propose an alternative way o f measuring career stage. The article concludes with suggestions for f uture research in this area.