Publishing quantitative careers research: challenges and recommendations

Purpose This article aims to provide prospective authors guidelines that will hopefully enable them to submit more competitive manuscripts to journals publishing careers research. Design/methodology/approach Based on their experience as an author, reviewer and editorial team member, the authors identify the main criteria that a quantitative study must meet to be considered for publication in international peer-reviewed journals covering career-related topics. They emphasize the importance of contributing to the careers literature and of designing the study in accordance with the research question. Findings Manuscripts are rejected because they are insufficiently innovative, and/or because sample, instruments and design are not appropriate to answer the research question at hand. Cross-sectional designs cannot be used to answer questions of mediation but should not be discarded automatically since they can be used to address other types of questions, including questions about nesting, clustering of individuals into subgroups, and to some extent, even causality. Originality/value The manuscript provides an insight into the decision-making process of reviewers and editorial board members and includes recommendations on the use of cross-sectional data.