Times of adversity often require an intentional focus on fostering people's inherent strengths to help them not give up on their life's most cherished aspirations. The outbreak of the Russian war in Ukraine has created unprecedented struggles and uncertainties among the entire Ukrainian population, including college students (Limone et al., 2022). The war has specifically impacted university students' mental health, leading to concerns such as post- traumatic stress disorder (Gupta & Shourie, 2022), anxiety (Limone et al., 2022), inability to achieve goals (Limone et al., 2022), reduced emotional well-being (Kurapov et al., 2022), and difficulty in persevering (Kurapov et al., 2022). During such challenging times, students' career adaptability can play an important role in supporting their well-being and persistence (Rossier, 2015). Research has demonstrated general sense of purpose as an important predictor of university students' resilience and persistence amid hardships (Sharma & Yukhymenko-Lescroart, 2022a) and has highlighted the specific nature of people's life purpose orientations in determining their academic success, mental health, and career growth (Hill et al., 2010; Sharma & Burnal-Arevalo 2021; Wang et al., 2020; Yukhymenko-Lescroart, 2022). Recently, Yukhymenko-Lescroart and Sharma (2022) demonstrated three specific purpose orientations: (a) others-growth encourages efforts to benefit others; (b) self-growth encompasses the desire to grow as a person and manifest one's full potential; and (c) career-focused reflects people's resolve to excel in their profession. T he aim of this study was to examine the role of each of these purpose orientations in career adaptability among Ukrainian university students during unprecedented, challenging, and traumatic times. Phase 1 took place during the COVID-19 pandemic before the onset of the Russian war, while Phase 2 occurred during the war following the Russian siege.