Setting Out Unwillingly: A Qualitative Analysis of the ‘Career Drift’ Experience Through Social Media Narratives

This study examines the increasingly visible phenomenon of "career drift" in the context of 21st-century work life, characterized by uncertainty, fragility, and flexibility, through the lens of social media narratives. Employing a qualitative research design, the study analyzed 120 publicly available posts collected from Twitter (now X) and Ekşi Sözlük using purposive sampling. Thematic analysis revealed five key themes: externally driven career orientation, occupational meaninglessness and identity ambiguity, permanence of temporary solutions, digital lamentation and narrative coping, and reorientation and deferred future construction. The findings reveal that users often make career choices based on coincidences, economic constraints, or environmental pressures, and experience significant ruptures in terms of meaning, identity, and belonging in these decisions. It was also observed that individuals express these experiences on social media through humor, irony, and a critical tone, using these platforms as a form of emotional coping. The study emphasizes the need to conceptualize career drift within a distinct theoretical framework and offers structural recommendations for career counseling practices and vocational guidance services.