The study aims to determine the reason for choosing the teaching profession identifying how history teacher candidates perceive the concepts of "teacher" and "teaching." The study was conducted with 115 history teachers enrolled in an initial teacher training programme in a university located in Turkey's Central Anatolia Region in the 2014-2015 academic year. To investigate the candidate teachers' perceptions of the teaching profession, the research participants filled in blank space from a questionnaire administered by the researchers. The collected data was analysed using the content analysis method and this gave rise to specific metaphors with associated categories. Thus, 19 metaphors and 6 categories for the teacher concept; 26 metaphors and 7 categories for teaching; 15 reasons and 3 categories for the reasons of choosing the teaching profession emerged. Research findings illustrate that the candidate history teachers' perception of the teaching profession are positive. However, the participants used predominantly negative metaphors, in describing the difficulties history teacher candidates encountered regarding "teaching." In relation to teaching profession choices, the most occurring reason was the love for the profession; other factors affecting the candidates' preference were the reasons articulated in the categories of "need" and "responsibility."