Lynn McAlpine, Montserrat Castelló, Kirsi Pyhältö
ABSTRACT Globally more than half of PhD graduates work beyond academia and they change jobs with greater frequency than in academia. We have been researching this post‐PhD mobility for some time, and recently, in beginning a study, we became intrigued by transcript excerpts that were not actual mobility but still referenced mobility. On examining these more closely, we realised they represented assessing options/possibilities without actual moving . This unexpected phenomenon led us to expand our analysis to compare experiences of considering mobility and actual mobility. Strikingly, in considering mobility compared to actual mobility, life‐career goals predominated, and assessments of personal and structural factors were often present—not the case with actual mobility. These findings fundamentally expand our understanding of life‐career thinking: first, they position considering mobility as an ongoing internal dialogue assessing personal and structural factors around life‐career intentions. Second, given no visible action results from the effort, these assessments emphasise the centrality of ‘thinking’ in individual's agency—efforts to influence their life‐career options. As to policy and practice, this new evidence of intentionality has implications for helping individuals enhance their career thinking—important in today's world of self‐authored careers.