How Career Communities Foster Connection, Development and Growth For Employees

Why employees are turning to communities for career growth

Consider the following scenarios:

• What happens when you’re a college student who wants to know if they can actually get an internship in sales?

• What if you’re a marketer and your manager asks you to run a new marketing campaign in a new mar-tech platform you’ve never heard of?

• What if you are a project manager at a digital agency and struggling to work with a cross-functional team of contractors and employees but aren’t sure how to solve the collaboration challenge?

• And what happens when you’re 8 years into your profession as an mechanical engineer when you realize you are not interested in continuing down this path and want to explore another field but aren’t sure if it’s right for you or if you have a shot?

These are real examples of foundational challenges that employees and students face in the modern day and workplace, and why career-focused communities have become so critical and important to development, learning, and growth.

These communities, which sit at the intersection of learning and development, formal higher education, and career advancement are sources of trust, connection, and development for employees up and down the organizational chart.  These are niche-based networks and organizations that present individuals with learning networks to ask questions, get guidance, meet other people and advance their careers. 

To be sure, in each of the scenarios, traditional organizations still play a role. Career Management Offices serve an important role for students on college campuses, doctors still must get the right licenses to practice, HR teams regularly help employees sort out personnel issues, and digital job platforms and networks (ex: LinkedIn, Monster, Indeed) are a critical part of a job or internship search.

What’s interesting about career communities is that they take some of the elements of traditional organizations such as higher education institutions, associations, internal learning and development teams, digital platforms, and combine them together to build micro communities of learning that appeal to employees in ways traditional mechanisms fall short.

Characteristics of Career Focused Communities

So what constitutes a career-focused community? Here are a few common characteristics:

Digital First - These communities are often formed first online and while some may include in-person components, many operate significantly online and asynchronously . This is also how they can rapidly scale. In 2021, Michelle Dhansinghani founded VC Unleashed, an online community aimed at helping underrepresented students and professionals learn about Venture Capital, and ultimately find roles and jobs in the VC industry. 

Many formal and informal MBA clubs are traditionally within an MBA program, or perhaps a school. But what was unique about this was that while Michelle started this while a student at Columbia Business School, it generated interest from students of other business schools and before long, it spread to hundreds of students and professionals across numerous business schools across the globe. 

Bottoms Up - Instead of traditional communities and professional associations which are more top down approach, Many of these career or niche communities start because of a grass roots bottoms up movement by an individual or group of individuals who are looking to solve a specific problem. Nick deWilde, started Invisible College, a web 3 education community focused on helping users curious about web3 onboard and learn about web3. In addition to having a thousand+ member community, Invisible College offers weekly learning events, is building an educational curriculum, and under principles of DAOs gives its members ownership of the community to vote on new projects, initiatives and ideas.

Asset Light - Forming an organization often meant a lot of process, protocol and structure. Forming a career community requires A Slack Channel and a substack. And while there are online career communities that are much more established, many don’t start off that way. Josephi Choi started TechPod, a community aimed at helping students who wanted to find internships in jobs in business roles at tech companies. Originally starting off as a newsletter, Choi has built a community of thousands of students who are helping each other land jobs in tech, and now has a podcast, mentorship program, and fellowship program for it’s members.

The 3C’s - Most of these career communities have a combination of offerings and services, but it all comes back to the three c’s: content, connections, and career.  

• Content is some form of education or learning that is focused on the role, profession or topic that members can consume or engaged in. Pavilion (Formerly Revenue Collective) has an entire curriculum of classes for sales professionals ranging from supporting new SDRs all the way up to Chief Revenue Officers.

• Connection is in the form of the ability to connect directly and 1:1 or in a group setting with other members of the community. This can be anything from a Slack or Discord Server, monthly events, digital member directory or anything else in between. Gen Z VC’s has a 14,000 person slack channel all geared at Gen Z students and employees who are interested in VC. The Product Marketing Alliance has over 20,000 members in it’s slack channel asking and answering questions about best practices in product marketing.

• Career is in the form of opportunities for career advancement or growth - whether that be networking events, job or internship postings, or formal mentorship or coaching programs. For example, Product Buds has a Slack channel where people can pair up to prepare for product management interviews

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Examples of Career Focused Communities

Online Communities come in all shapes and sizes, but with respect to career communities, there are a number of common examples:

1)Individual Led - Lenny, Diego+Felix, Khe Hy 

Many career niche communities start through the efforts of one individual, specifically, someone who has a combination of credibility, trust, expertise and connections in a specific field, domain or industry. For example, Lenny Rachitsky started his newsletter for his thoughts, research and insights on product management. As it picked up traction, he then built a paid offering around it that offered access to a slack channel, private events, a podcast, and extra premium features. Now, Lenny also offers learning (cohort course on product management fundamentals) as well as a job board (free for users, fee for hiring managers/companies) 

While Lenny’s version is paid, there are many free communities out there as well. Felix Watson Jr and Diego Granados co-host the Product Management Mastermind Group, a group for aspiring and emerging product managers. They host weekly events, connect people for informational interviews, and support various initiatives for interview prep and job prep.

2)Company Led  - (Salesforce, Hubspot, Pendo)

Many companies, especially tech companies have user and product communities that help them educate users and evangelize goodwill and support. While these are not necessarily new, what’s interesting about them is that while many started as communities mainly for the product of software, companies have been layering in career community elements to these existing communities as they’ve looked for ways to deliver value to their users. 

Take Salesforce - The Salesforce Trailblazer community has been a place where any Salesforce user such as a Salesforce Admin or Developer could find an answer to a question or a best practice for how to do something with Salesforce. But now, it also serves as a place where they can connect with peers, advance their career through sharing their knowledge and getting credit for it through badges + profiles, and also find career opportunities in the form of a job board and hiring ecosystem, and expert program. It’s why someone like Zac Otero can go from dropping out of high school and working an hourly wage part-time job, to becoming a full-time employee as a Salesforce Administrator making six figures. 

Pendo is another example of a company that has embraced career communities. A popular software product for product managers, Pendo had community-like features to help its users get value out of its products. To build an even bigger audience and to support its users + customers in even more ways, Pendo went out and acquired Mind The Product, one of the world’s largest career communities of Product Managers. Instead of just providing it’s users with knowledge on how to use it’s products, Pendo has aspirations for being the ultimate go-to resource for training, learning and development for it’s core audience (product managers) and is betting that if it can support PMs in their career journeys, it can grow the reach and brand awareness of their product.

3)Role Based - (URX, Culture Amp, Lattice)

Industry and Trade organizations have been around for centuries. But as business and markets evolve, role based communities that serve specific and focused niche roles, functions or areas are popping up in a bottoms up way to serve people who share a similar affiliation. One industry in particular (HR) is a perfect case study for role-based career communities.

For example, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has long been seen as the preeminent HR Association for HR professionals - but what happens if you’re a University Relations Recruiter wanting to know what the latest trends or people are at the intersection of talent acquisition and higher education? 

Or if you’re an employee experience, onboarding, or employee engagement professional? Instead of top down organizations that serve a large swath of people at the highest levels, niche role based communities that serve specific populations that help those professionals advance their careers are starting to rise up. 

This is why you have places like URX (University Recruiters) HR All Stars (HR, People and Talent Professionals) and People Geeks (Culture & Employee Engagement Professionals) take off. These organizations play a critical role in helping individuals who share that profession grow and advance their career, connect with their peers, and get guidance and mentorship. 

4) Learning + Education Adjacent- (We Ascend, Reforge, Maven, Bravado)

At the core of learning and development programs such as cohort-based courses, boot camps, and leadership development offerings is the ability to learn from your peers to make you better at your job, grow your career opportunities, or advance to a new career. It makes perfect sense as to why many of these programs are bolting on a career community component to help learners get to their desired outcomes faster. 

This intuitively makes sense - while many people learn out of curiosity, most of the time, adult/professional learning comes with an intention or desired outcome that an individual hopes to achieve, be it advancing in their field, or moving into another one. Since people who sign up for a cohort-based course have already signaled their intent to learn, having a built in career community on top of the learning helps them take the learning and then hopefully put it toward a career outcome or goal.

One way some of these programs have done it is through having job boards, or mentorship matching, where participants can get expert guidance or advice on how to find a specific job or role. In some cases, these groups will partner with employers, offer paid job boards or at least play matchmaker between seekers and hiring managers. 

Finally, many of these also use career community-like functionality through alumni mentors, coaches, or peers. These people give back their time, in exchange for money, brand building, but also serve as a demand gen engine to recruit new participants and members of the program.

5) Job and Talent Boards - (Teal, Untapped, Ladder)

Searching for jobs or transitioning careers can be a lonely process, but it doesn’t have to be. Companies that work in the talent matching business are starting to layer in career communities to help people search and explore together. Ladder is an example of an early-in career community that helps people connect around shared functions, roles or industries. Teal has regular events for its job seekers, and Untapped has built in communities and allows for connection between recruiters and job and internship seekers.

6) Professionally Run (Chief, OnDeck, Round, Voray, Medley, Product Marketing Alliance, Product School)

These communities are built with founders and builders who intentionally and specifically built a career community at the center of their business model and key value proposition. These intentionally are designed for professional and career advancement, are supported by a membership-based business model, and often require an application or screening process before joining. Voray and OnDeck have numerous communities for various roles or functions, such as Customer Success professionals, or marketers, and Chief is a professional community for female executives.

These professionally run communities take on a variety of business models.  For example, the Product Marketing Alliance is backed by private equity funding, which has allowed them to expand and grow significantly across the globe, as well as expand into serving other adjacent fields and functions (ex: Sales Enablement, Go To Market, Product). 

OnDeck, Kindred, and Chief are similar in that they both are VC-backed and have scaled rapidly through the funding they’ve received. Generally, these communities use the tried and true approaches for their business models, which tend to be a mix of freemium memberships, monthly or yearly fees, paid events and b2b marketing sponsorships (ex: ads, content, email, etc)

Implications

One of the unique aspects of this trend is that it comes at the intersection of many different organizations, and has implications for lots of different types of roles, leaders and people. Here are a few key players who need to think through this, and what they should be evaluating.

Career Educators  - Consider how you are empowering and educating your students + job seekers with the tools and resources to identify and explore career opportunities. Alumni networks and linkedin are still valid, but there are unrealized opportunities in these niches that could be valuable to your students.

Higher Education Leaders - Many forward thinking leaders in higher education know that the “4 and 40” model is no longer relevant in today’s modern workplace. Career advancement and growth is the way to ensure professionals have opportunities for career growth and development. But the question becomes, will you be the career community of choice, for the existing alum base? Perhaps said a better way, how can you ensure you are the trusted and go-to source for your alum, and how can career communities advance that goal?

Hiring Managers and Talent Acquisition Professionals  - Consider looking to these communities to source and hire diverse talent. This can be for part-time, contract, or full-time work. In competitive talent markets, these are great avenues for proactive networking and brand building.

Companies Look to Reach an Audience - These are great opportunities to get in front of your specific user, avatar or role that you are looking to engage with. Pendo, with their acquisition of Mind the Product is a great example of how this can help. 

Companies with User Groups or Complicated Products -  Delivering value to your customers and users is not just about your product or service, but supporting them on their professional journey. 

Learning and Education Programs + Companies - Education and learning are inherently social. Furthermore, education is generally a means to a better or quicker career outcome. Consider how you are creating opportunities for career through community, or how you might add on a community element to help acquire, retain or enhance your learner base.

Associations and Trade Organizations - Associations and Member based organizations are always thinking about how they can continue to deliver value and stay relevant to their existing members while finding ways to attract new ones. As business and markets evolve, finding ways to stay relevant to the advancement and growth of your member’s career is critical. This also means you need to earn the credibility and trust of your members, which may prove challenging, especially in the United States where many are losing trust in traditional institutions. 

Sales, Marketing and Customer-Facing Professionals For B2B Companies  - Your buyers (especially in the B2B world) are often going to career communities to ask questions about what products, programs, offerings and services they should buy. If you want to see this in action, join a career community and go to their slack channel and look at the questions that arise.

Conclusion: We’re All Just Looking For Answers

Earlier this year, I had the chance to interview Tim Sanders, the author of Love is The Killer App. I got a copy of Tim’s book when I was a teenager, and it forever changed the way that I approach relationships and connection with others and organizations. Tim’s core premise is that when we look outward and expansively about how we can contribute from ourselves to help others or advance a collaborative cause, we in turn can help ourselves. 

In a world of Me, being focused on the we, enables us to stand out, cultivate relationships, and build trust and connection with others, which gives us more opportunities and resources to achieve our own goals and desires. 

Something that Tim said to me stuck out, which was that, “At the end of the day, we’re all just looking for answers.” Tim’s comment was in context to the power of the internet and platforms like Google where we can literally find an answer to any question that we have. Reflecting on that comment, I actually think it has a deeper meaning -

Whether we consciously know it or not, we don’t have all the answers, and all of us are looking for trusted sources and people, to go find answers, learn from, and go through this journey together. In the context of the workplace, career communities solve for all of those things .

Whether it’s looking to find answers to questions about how to do our jobs better, looking to another mentor or guide who can give answers about switching a career, we all have questions that we cannot answer by ourselves. Career focused communities can provide answers that we need to go about our work and lives and achieve some of those goals. 

In a world of constant change and unrest, having a trusted group of peers, mentors and relationships to get answers from and with, ideate with, gives you stability and adaptability - career communities do just that,