3 Ways to Accelerate Your Career Development
3 actions you can take to fuel career growth today
One of the things I believe needs to change is that we need to be talking more about career development in the workplace. My hypothesis around this comes from the fact that when something is talked about, normalized and encouraged, it’s more likely to get actioned on as well as championed within a company.
We already know from research that career development is something that employees value, and without it, they may leave, so by creating more openness and acceptance around talking about it, more people will take control over their careers.
However, like anything, words alone are never enough, and talking without following through gets us nowhere. Companies should invest in programs and processes for honoring and facilitating career development, but employees shouldn’t rely or wait for that to happen.
Outside of having more regular career conversations, I have 3 practical habits and tactics that you can use to help you get career development to be a bigger priority.
#1) The Brag Book
The brab book is meant to help you catalog and keep track of your accomplishments. It’s merely a collection of messages, artifacts, and other communications that demonstrate the positive outcomes of your work. The thinking here is that we all do so much great work, but if nobody ever hears about it or sees it, we are missing out on getting the recognition of the outcomes of our impact.
Furthermore, the brag book should in theory highlight things that you either A) are really good at or B) really enjoy doing - if you want to work toward a career goal (ex: a new role, expanded scope, new responsibilities) a brag book is similar to a lawyer collecting evidence to support her case. The more “brags” you can put in here, the more supporting evidence you can use to support the case for whatever career goal you are reaching for.
Since items in the brag book can come in different forms of communication (ex: shoutouts over slack, screenshots, thank you emails from customers, a really good powerpoint presentation you delivered) I normally use a google doc of sorts (ex: docs or spreadsheets) that summarizes the different elements of the brag book, and that links out as necessary to the specific additional deliverables.
Finally, the brag book also serves an underrated but important purpose: a pick me up. We all have crappy days, and sometimes its nice to remind ourselves of the great work we do and we know we are capable of.
How I used this: As I get wins, I collect them and put them in my brag book. Whenever I have to participate in any kind of performance evaluation, I make sure to have my brag book ready to help illustrate the impact of my work. Finally, I also give my manager access to my brag book, and from time to time mention him/her on new accomplishments, just so they are fully aware of the work I am doing.
#2)Walking Deck
A walking deck is an “elevator pitch” of what you are working on. You can use this to share with others the work you are doing as well as to solicit feedback, generate awareness, or just give others context who you might be engaging with on a particular project. Usually, this takes the form of a short Powerpoint deck, but it could easily be a word/google doc, or whatever other internal communication method the culture of your company values.
One of the promises of working at a company (especially a large one) are the serendipitous opportunities that can happen when really smart people come together to share knowledge, ideas and expertise. While it would be great for that to happen organically, you are mostly limited by the hours in the day and your personal network to gain visibility of your projects and initiatives. Being able to develop some form of collateral or assets is a great way to. Practically speaking, it’s also helpful for working on the project itself. For example, if part of your project involves you interviewing a bunch of subject matter experts within your organization.
How I Used This: For each major initiative or project I was working on, I would create a walking deck (no more than 3-4 slides, but using appendix for extras) I would also link any walking deck in my 1:1 doc with my manager, that way, if they needed visibility to it, or if they got asked a question about what “Al was working on” they could share the deck. I would also share the walking deck with anyone who I met with when I was preparing to start the project. I would often find, this would actually help connect me to other people, who would end up helping me during the project.
#3)Career 10-Q
Each quarter, publicly traded companies must file a 10-Q to keep their investors and the general public abreast of the most recent developments and the health of their business. The Career 10-Q follows the same principle - provide a summary of what’s going on with your business (in this case, you) with your key stakeholders (ex: your manager) The 10-Q can have an overall summary of what projects you worked on during the quarter, the key metrics and your progress against them, and for anything completed, the outcomes of those projects.
Furthermore, it can also include any of your own learnings from these projects, as well as your own thoughts about what you want to focus on for the next quarter/remainder of the year. Finally, there should be a section on there for how you are progress against any kind of goals or aspirations from your career development plan (assuming that you have one)
How I used this: At the end of each quarter, I would populate my 10-Q, share it with my manager, and then we’d review it during a 1:1 at the end of the quarter.
Conclusion
In my experience, employees struggle with their career development because of two things:
Not having a good sense of where they want to go as a result of not fully understanding the work that they’ve done
Not having enough other people outside of themselves advocating and opening doors on their behalf
Making time to consistently create and update these three documents helps employees better understand and articulate the work they do, and become more aware of their progress and development, which in turn makes it easier to identify a path forward for your career. It also helps ensure that the work you are doing is visible and getting noticed by your peers and colleagues. Doing internal marketing is critical to being visible,and these documents help.
Sharing these documents with others, like your manager, peers, or mentors helps others become aware of your work, and in addition to your own self-advocacy, helps you gain exposure and access to opportunities that align with your career goals.
In addition to having more regular conversations about career development, these actions can help you find ways to increase your odds of both setting and achieving your career goals