AFIQAH BINTI MOHAMMAD MUZAFAR SHAH

 What drives the career choice among engineers?

Article : L. S. Choo, M. Norsiah, and L. I. Tan, “What drives the career choice among engineers? A case in Malaysian manufacturing plant,” Int. J. Res. Stud. Manag., 2012.

Career choice can be defined as process choosing a professional career path. This process is quite hot issue especially among the professionals such as engineers. Many factors that drives of choosing career among engineers which are intrinsic, extrinsic and also interpersonal factors. For intrinsic factors is about the perception of Person Job-Fit. It is about the individual and the job requirement which can be fullfill with the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) of the individual. Besides that, the individual will choose that career when they have been offered something that compatible to their needs, preferences, desires and also compatible with their traits and skills. Meanwhile, for the extrinsic factor is about the Financial Reward where it is most important factors that influences the individual to selection of their profession, besides the job satisfaction and aptitude of subject matter. This is because employees will be not motivated when they did not received rewards as their expectation. Other than that, R&D professional tend to have professional rewards to enhance their personal career development such as promotion, job transfer and entrepreneurial opportunities. Lastly, factors that drives choosing career among engineers is Interpersonal factor which are from family members such as parents and siblings influence the career choice of an individual. Plus, due to prior research, the parental influence, peer influence and job satisfaction of physicians are more important than other professional classes such as lawyers, engineers, accountants and so forth. Therefore, these three factors are importantly drive the career choices among the engineers.