The Alignment between Career Interests and STEM Careers of Secondary School Students

: Satisfaction in choosing a career is important and could be achieved when a person chooses his career in line with the personality and environment. This would usually create a strong job orientation. This study aims to identify the STEM career interest tendency of form two students and measure the relationship between career interests and STEM careers. This study used a survey design. A total of 53 form two students were involved as study respondents consisted of 14 males and 39 females. The instrument used was Career Exploration, adapted from the Self-Directed Search (SDS) test. Data were analysed descriptively and inferentially using SPSS Windows version 23.0. The findings of the study showed that Holland's three-point codes (Holland, 1989) for STEM careers were Social, Investigative, and Realistic (S-I-R). Most STEM interests fit the People-Things dimension. However, Chi-squared test showed significant misalignment between STEM careers and career interests (X2 (5) = 10.87, p>.05). Researchers suggested that career counsellors assess the importance of career interests in explaining and describing STEM careers. Future studies should emphasize on identifying the personalities and career interests of students before being employed as well as selecting more samples. Suggestions for further studies includes the study of the relationship between STEM career interests and parental influence, career alignment and job satisfaction, career alignment and job motivation, career alignment and achievement and productivity, gender characteristics and job satisfaction as well as career alignment and life satisfaction