Data on a nationally representative sample of 3730 white men aged 15 to 24 in 1966 were obtained from the National Longitudinal Study of the Labor Market Experience of Young Men. The men were interviewed every year from 1966 to 1971, and the surveys provide data on aspirations and employment experiences for each year. Three variables--job aspirations congruence, the categorical stability of jobs and aspirations over one year, and the predictive validity of jobs and aspirations over one to five years--were assessed in parallel fashion. Data revealed the following: (1) eventual congruence of category of job (realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional) and apirations was achieved more often by men changing aspirations to match jobs rather than vice versa; (2) aspirations for category of work generally were not as useful as category of jobs for predicting category of jobs held from one to five years later; and (3) the aspirations of lower- and middle-class men were equally predictive of later jobs. Level of work is more important to men than is category of work, and differences between lower-class youth and middle-class youth in their level of job aspirations exist from the earliest ages studied. (MN)