The article analyzes the main existing theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of professional careers. It is proved that in Western sociology the study of professional careers was mainly formed within the framework of concepts based on the theory of professional stratification and mobility. According to these concepts, the career is understood as the movement of individuals in the system of social stratification along the steps of a professional, qualifying, property, official, or other hierarchy. The advantages and limitations of the stratification approach to the study of career problems are considered. The article considers the network approach as a variant of the stratification approach development. The author concludes that classical and modern analysis of professional career within the stratification approach gives a significant role in regulating the career process to social status and education, while internal factors of the career process remain underestimated. Career understood as the desire of individuals to increase or confirm their status on the basis of profession and education. The gap between macroand trace elements is fixed in regulating the process of professional careers in the existing concepts of professional careers. The concepts based on the theory of human capital and the theory of life chances are analyzed as an attempt to overcome this gap. Says the prospect of using the terms "path" and "socio-cultural field," as applied to the study of career process. The author's understanding of the content of the career process in modern society based on the concepts of the sociocultural field and professional trajectoriesis presented is presented. Career is interpreted as the process of building an individual trajectory of his movement in the field of changing social and professional positions as a result of the realization of the needs for achievement and self-realization.