Graduates ’ Construction Systems and Career Development Val é rie Fournier 1,2 The paper draws on the Chicago School’ s conceptualization of career and on Personal Construct Psychology to examine the relationships between graduates ’ construction systems and patterns of career development during the first 4 years of employment. It seeks to identify differences in trends of constructive revision between ‘‘ successful ’’ and “less successful ” graduates. The study is based on 33 graduates who completed repertory grids on entering employment (T1), 6 months later (T2), and 4 years later (T3), re-eliciting constructs each time. The results show some significant change in the nature of the constructs elicited by graduates over the 4 years; in particular, graduates made greater use of constructs related to achievement, cynicism, and organizational politics. Graduates whose career was more “successful ” (i.e., who experienced one or two promotions during the 4 years of the study and felt generally satisfied with their careers) were more likely to use constructs related to social behavior and flexibility at T1, while graduates whose career was “less sucessful ” (i.e., no promotion and felt dissatisfied with their careers) were more likely to construe themselves in terms of achievement and work competence at T1. Four years on, “successful ” graduates tended to rely more on constructs related to achievement and flexibility, while ‘‘ less successful ’’ graduates were more likely to use constructs related to social behavior. The significance and implications of these results for organizational recruitment and development practices are discussed. KEY WORDS: career development; socialization; sociality; personal construct psychology. INTRODUCTION Graduates are considered to be a key resource for organizations ’ long- term development and compe titiveness (e.g., Bowden, 1992; Connor, Strebler, Human Relations, Vol. 50, No. 4, 1997 363 0018 ¯ 7267/97/0400 ¯ 0363$12.50/1 Ó 1997 The Tavistock Institute 1 Department of Management, University of Keele, Keele, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, U.K. 2 Requests for reprints should be addressed to Valérie Fournier, Department of Manageme nt, University of Keele, Keele, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, U.K.