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Objective: When entering employment many beginning teachers experience a reality shock and a crisis of competence. These two factors, in combination with high levels of job demands and low levels of job resources, may lead to the development of burnout. The purpose of the study was to investigate how individual characteristics, the educational context, and the work context predicted levels of burnout and work engagement during this transition period. Participants: The sample consisted of 1290 beginning teachers from Sweden. Methods: Data were collected using surveys during the final year of education and during the initial period of employment. Data were analyzed using hierarchical regression. Results: Job demands, job resources, and spillover between private life and work accounted for the largest amount of explained variance in both burnout and work engagement. Job demands were more strongly related to burnout, whereas job resources more strongly related to work engagement. The predictors with the greatest relative influence on both burnout and work engagement were unmet expectations and mastery of skills. Conclusions: The results support the importance of the work context's impact on burnout and work engagement. Additionally, the interaction between private life and work should be further studied in future studies.

The most crucial factors affecting burnout and work engagement when entering employment were feelings of competence to satisfactorily perform one's work, the discrepancy between previous expectations and the actual conditions of employment, and the balance between work and private life. Beginning teachers who felt competent, had their expectations met, and had a sound balance between their work and private life experienced less burnout and were more engaged in their work. Overall, most teachers coped well with the transition from education to employment and had low levels of burnout and high levels of work engagement. However, there were those who experienced strain and rather quickly decided to leave the teaching profession and there were those who suffered from burnout.The background to the study was the steep increase in levels of long-term sick leave due to mental illness that occurred in Sweden in the late 1990s. Teachers were one of the occupations that consistently had the highest levels of long-term sick leave, and teachers in Sweden have also been found to have the highest levels of work-related stress. Moreover, the transition from higher education to employment has been found to be quite a challenge for newcomers, and it has been found that the initial period of employment is critical when it came to the development of work-related attitudes and especially for the development of burnout.