Often career and professional development can come as an afterthought. I have been guilty of this, thinking about it at the very end of the year when the year is ending and the budget is winding up.

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Driving it yourself

The person with the most invested interest in your career is yourself. Therefore the person who will be and should be driving it the most is you. You can rely on support from your manager, mentor, coach and even peers or collaborators. But they won’t have a vested interest like you. What is essential is being clear on where you are and where you want to be. Be clear on what is important regarding recognition of growth. What are you seeking? More responsibility, more visibility, more money, title change or a lateral move. Outsourcing your growth to your manager is risky. They have a lot of things to focus on including business needs. You need to take on responsibility for your growth. Be clear on what success is to you and how you know you’ve reached the milestone that you wish to achieve.

👀 Tip: Look at different sources. If you are not sure where to start or what to work on review different sources. For example - feedback from your manager or colleagues, external job descriptions, career architectures, blog posts, industry reports. Use your organisation’s career architecture as a basis for your planning if available and map against it.

Time commitment/treat it like a project

I often get asked, how do I prioritise this? I am so busy and I always have upcoming deadlines. The best advice I’ve received from a friend is to treat it like a project. Put it in your calendar and allocate some time. At a minimum, make a placeholder. Something even better - break down your goal or area you want to work into sizeable hourly chunks and be specific about what you will do each week. This will minimise the chance of encroaching that set aside time and using that time to figure out what to do. Setting specific dates will also help. It keeps you accountable to yourself. You can execute the initiative like an actual project. It will have a timeline and deadline rather than a nebulous thing with no beginning, middle and end.

🤝 Tip: Find an accountability partner. Someone to check in with you on a weekly or regular basis. Even better if they are trying to learn or improve the same thing. You can both swap notes about what you have learned or improved.

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What to expect from your manager

A good manager will support your growth journey. They can help you identify areas to grow and invest in. Your regular 1:1 meetings can be a way to ask questions, highlight specific needs, or a form of accountability as to how it’s going.

Managers have knowledge and access to various internal resources to help you, or can keep an eye out for projects and opportunities that match closely to where or what you want to grow in.

🗓️ Tip: Schedule it in. Create a quarterly meeting with your manager just to focus on your career growth and professional development. It gives them and you an opportunity to prepare, and put some thought into the check in.

Three forms of career or professional development

When planning out the area or skill set you want to grow, consider leveraging all three forms you can use to help you grow.

• Experience - upskill with hands-on experience on an area by taking on a project or extra responsibilities. 

• Exposure - being able to see others demonstrate the skills you want to be better at or learn.

• Education - more formal ways of learning such as courses, workshops, diplomas, degrees. These may be needed for maintaining professional licences.

Mapping it out

Spend a good amount of time - maybe a half day to do your research and think carefully about where you want to spend your time and effort. Then have a conversation with your manager and get their feedback on it. You could also get feedback from your mentor or coach if you have one.

📩 Tip: Send it to your manager in advance. They have some time to review and think about your plan. The feedback will be better thought out.

⏩ Career and Professional Development Template 

Every day you should be learning and growing. Hopefully this template and explanation will help put your best foot forward in career growth. 

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