The questionnaire used in the study addressed the following measures: career orientation (careerist, artisan, social activist, and self-investor), job satisfaction, and background factors. Job assignment categories were patrol, investigation, and administration; and the two indices of tenure were organization and position. The findings show that among career orientations, careerists were highest in job satisfaction; and among assignment categories, officers in investigation and administration were higher than those in patrol. Also, of four background variables (position tenure, organization tenure, rank, and age), only position tenure accounted for a significant proportion of unique variance in job satisfaction; job satisfaction was associated with low position tenure. The findings were interpreted as supporting the concept that there is a fundamental compatibility between the careerist career orientation and the normative climate of the traditional police organization. There was also a compatibility between the social activist and artisan career orientations and many of the core features of community policing, the emerging paradigm of policing. The need to consider individual officer characteristics, including their career orientation, is thus important in police selection and placement. 1 table and 39 references