career vs vocation

career

noun
  • One's calling in life; a person's occupation; one's profession. 

  • General course of action or conduct in life, or in a particular part of it. 

  • A jouster's path during a joust. 

  • The flight of a hawk. 

verb
  • To move rapidly straight ahead, especially in an uncontrolled way. 

adj
  • Synonym of serial (“doing something repeatedly or regularly as part of one's lifestyle or career”) 

vocation

noun
  • An occupation for which a person is suited, trained or qualified. 

  • An inclination to undertake a certain kind of work, especially a religious career; often in response to a perceived summons; a calling. 

How often have the words career and vocation occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )