The Top Career Development Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Actionable steps to put together your career development plan

Most hardworking and driven employees know and believe career development and learning are important to career growth. Unfortunately, doing your own career development is not always easy. Despite the fact that most people believe that career development is important and even critical to employment, actually putting career development into action can be difficult. I find this especially true at large organizations. Exacerbated by all of this is the fact that most employees, while they care about career development never effectively are taught how to or given the skills to develop their career. 

Having worked at two organizations now that have 60,000 people, one lesson that I've learned along the way is that you own your career. You are the best person to determine your value-add and aspirations and to work towards achieving them.  It is up to each of us to be the lead architect in planning and managing our careers.  Yes, we want to empower ourselves to ‘own our career’.  While we cannot predict or control what happens around us, we can position ourselves to be ready and able to react to all situations we encounter.   

Over the years, I’ve had to plan and architect my own career development, and through my time as a career and leadership coach, and advisor to hundreds of high performing employees, have helped them as they’ve tried to build their own career development and learning plans. I want to share some of the most common mistakes and challenges people encounter around career development, and offer some tactical steps for how to navigate these.

Mistake #1: Career development = promotion

One of the biggest mistakes people make is that they equate career development to promotions or new roles or titles. While this can be an outcome of developing your career (ex: if you build a whole new set of skills THEN you can get promoted) it is not intended to be the same thing. 

Promotions are lagging indicators - they are given based on a body of work that you previously executed. Career development and learning is proactive and forward looking. By focusing solely on what you’ve already done, you’re missing a chance to be forward looking and forward thinking.

Alternative Approach: John like many other employees, wanted to get a promotion but also had goals of moving into a product marketing role within the next 18-24 months. Instead of just focusing on the promotion, John asked his manager if he could carve out a project that would allow him to work on a product launch, something John knew he would need to have experience with if he were making the move into product marketing. John’s manager agreed to give John the chance to work on this project, and the following year, John was able to move to a different time. During that, John’s manager actually advocated for John to be brought in at a higher title, and John was actually able to get a promotion in the process. 

Mistake #2: Trying to build the perfect plan

Some people put off a career development plan or a set of career goals because they aren’t sure exactly where they want to go. They feel they need to have a grand plan with a roadmap of complete steps in order to actually take action and move. While it's true that planning and having an end in mind helps, you don’t need to have everything fully baked or a complete step by step plan in order to get started. Oftentimes, people who make this mistake suffer from analysis paralysis, and put so much thought, that they forget to take action. The best thing you can do sometimes is to take the first step, but sometimes people feel paralyzed to get something off the ground.

Alternate Approach: One of my friends and colleagues Julia Weunch is a big advocate of throwing out the 5 and 10 year plan, and I would say that for a good majority of people that is the right thing to do. Instead of focusing on a long term plan that you “set it and forget it” consider focusing on a few long term goals with short term actions that you can revisit every 6-12 months to evaluate. During the evaluation period, you can see whether or not the actions you are taking are A) making progress and B) still helping you work toward a long term goal that makes sense for you. I find this helps you blend both being thoughtful about your future, without feeling like you have to define every single step along the way. It also allows you to take advantage of emergent opportunities that you may not be able to see come about when you plan so far in advance.

Mistake #3: Going it alone

It is true that you own your career, and that at the end of the day the only person responsible for driving action with your career development is yourself. However, you cannot be the only person who helps with your growth. There are going to be others who guide and open doors with you along the journey. Oftentimes, people will put together great plans, or have a goal in mind but try to do it without the support of others. This is especially true in large organizations where sometimes the importance of mentors and sponsors to get career development opportunities makes a huge difference.

Alternate Approach: Ideally, your manager, and any mentors or sponsors should be people you collaborate with on your career development. Or, you can also set up a formal or informal “Board of Directors” who can you can turn to for helping think through your career development.

#4:Not taking ownership

I recognize number three is the opposite of number four, but like many things career development is both an art and science. Many employees wait for their employer or manager to drive their career development planning and goal setting. This is not to suggest that your manager is a bad person, or even a bad manager. It has more to do with the fact that they have many other priorities such as goals and metrics as well as looking out for other team members. 

Furthermore, at the end of the day, you know yourself better than anyone else, and you will be happiest, most fulfilled, most engaged when you are determining what success looks like for you, and working toward a path that you set to achieve it.

Inevitably in this process you will need to absolutely rely on others. Furthermore, proactive career development where you take ownership does not by any means absolve your manager from their role in helping you define and develop a plan. However it starts with you, and you can’t wait around till someone else comes knocking at your door to start planning for your own career growth.

Alternate Approach: As I mentioned in the last mistake, you will need to rely on others to help you with your career development. But you own your career (and have to live with the decisions you make) so it starts with you. Taking the time to proactively schedule time in your calendar to think through your career development, plan your actions and goals, and bring in the right people starts with yourself.

Mistake #5:Promotion and Title Bump = Success

For many, career development is often looked at as two things: Did I get promoted, and do I get a pay raise? In other words, career development is equal to outcomes and titles. Sure, this is some of it. And yes, having a bigger title or a large organization can often come with being promoted or successful in an organization. 

But it doesn’t have to be that way, especially if those things are not necessarily what motivates, or drives you personally, or if there are other things that do. For example, just because you don’t get promoted or a pay raise, doesn’t mean in a given year that you can’t learn and grow, or take on new roles. By focusing just on these two things, you limit your ability to learn and grow.

Alternate Approach: Success can include titles and raises, but these are just byproducts of the actual goals you set for yourself. Furthermore, you can absolutely still be successful, even if you don’t get promoted, or a new raise. Instead of thinking solely in extrinsic measures, you can focus on other intrinsic goals and measures that are important.

Note:

Title and raises are important, and you should feel empowered to ensure you are compensated for the outcomes you drive. I don’t think anyone should ever feel like they are not adequately represented and treated equitably.

Mistake #6: Following up and following through

Oftentimes companies will have you fill out an individual development plan, and everyone will go through the exercise of completing it and saying they completed it. But while that is done, it stays on someone’s hard drive and never gets touched until the next year when they open it back up. It ends up being one of those “check the box” type exercises, which unfortunately are not helpful to growth and development. 

Alternate Approach:

Career development is a continuous and iterative process where you are constantly learning and growing and reflecting on the fly. As such, you’ll want to make sure you’re constantly reviewing what your plan was and documenting how you are progressing. For example, I set aside four times a year (quarterly) to revisit my career development goals, and to document the progress I’ve made, any challenges I am facing, and determining whether or not I need to make any adjustments or revisions.

Mistake #7: Following the set paths

Within an organization, oftentimes people will ask for “level guides” or promotion paths or career ladders. These are things that we are accustomed to and used to, especially after many years of the educational industrial complex. That said, having these guidelines and guardrails within an organization helps provide context about “what good looks like” as well as gives some guidance on potential paths that a person could take.  Unfortunately, too often than not, individuals rely solely on these paths, and forget that while they are intended to be for everyone they do not always mean that your unique path is meant to be the exact same. 

Organizations are starting to become more understanding of this, and we’ve even shifted the language around the idea of the career ladder (now referred to as a “jungle gym’ or lattice.) Furthermore, some organizations have even acknowledged the fact that not everyone is cut out to be a people manager and have created alternative paths for those who want to remain individual contributors.

This can be helpful especially in a large organization, or, if you are someone who needs some structure. Furthermore, in some organizations, there is a culture that dictates people “follow the path.” That said, 

For some, this will mean continuing to follow the path the organization has set. For others, it may mean they decide to pursue another path, and others will fall somewhere in between. The point here is not to follow the path or not follow the path, or to make judgments on what makes sense, but rather to demonstrate that the right answer is the one that makes the most sense for you.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of talk about “the future of work” and the importance of upskilling, reskilling, education and continuous learning. You can read the data here, but the upshot is that many of us will find ourselves in positions where we’ll have to continuously undergo pivots, transitions and changes to our jobs and careers. 

While this can seem scary or arduous if you are an employee or highly motivated professional, the flipside of challenge is always opportunity. For those high-performing employees who want to take advantage of the future of work, proactive career development is your key to unlocking career growth, employment opportunities, and personal development. By avoiding these mistakes and taking these actions, you can take your own career growth into your own hands.

As the saying goes, “Fortune favors the bold,” so do yourself a favor and put together that career development plan.