The article is devoted to the actual problem of forming ideas about professional success in vocational students. Particular attention is paid to the importance of this process, in particular its impact on the outlook of future workers, their ideas about future career. The article reveals the relationship and contradiction in perceptions of professional success and social and cultural position of a citizen in a society, where the free and full development of the future specialist is possible. The author notes that in modern scientific discourse different approaches to understanding of citizenship and social position are grounded, the assessment of which can be various. It is doubtless reasoning that outlook of people is closely related to their perceptions of life and professional success, career prospects in social and economic conditions of the State. The research of a person’s progress in various spheres of human activity is conducted in the EU and Ukraine, but the phenomenon of establishing of social position in the context of idea of career success has not yet become the subject of scientific analysis integrated in the domestic pedagogy. The results of the study suggest that the awareness of vocational schools students of career success depends not only on external factors (educational, social, economic, political, industrial, etc.), but also on the individual characteristics of the subject of professional achievements and  his social position