Abstract: The role of cognitive processes in adapting individual work methods to labor conditions (objective and subjective) in blue-collar occupations with a high level of stereotypization has been poorly studied. Our hypothesis about the difference in cognitive strategies of searching for Individual Methods to Perform Technological Operations (IMPTO) has been checked in an industrial enterprise and with a laboratory model. An original method has been used. The paper reveals and describes the cognitive strategies of goal-oriented, evaluative and unintentional search for IMPTO in case of stereotypization. The obtained results have applied significance for the practice of professional training and the development of recommendations to overcome monotony of labor. From the theoretical viewpoint, the results are useful for specifying the regularities in the functioning of the metaconscious representation of experience as well as the links between the cognitive and regulative components of labor activity.