13
Gaining Experience and Moving Up
Are you eager to move ahead in your career? Whether you’re just starting out or have been at it a little while, you may expect your career to progress pretty quickly if you feel you’ve put in the time. So, you may occasionally find yourself somewhat impatient at how long it’s taking to move ahead. Many say you have to pay your dues to earn the right to move up. This means spending time in jobs along your career path contributing to the company’s goals and gaining valuable experience. This chapter focuses primarily on how you can gain the valuable experience you need to move up.
Leaders would argue that the quality of your career path is more important than how long you’ve been on your journey. But what constitutes quality from their perspective? Quality is the value of your experiences over the course of your educational and professional careers—the longer you’ve been in the workforce, the more important your professional career experiences.
The value of your experiences is characterized by three factors, which are key in landing a job and moving up:
• What have you delivered?
• What do you have to offer?
• How do you manage your career?
What Have You Delivered?
Whether hiring from the outside or promoting from within, hiring managers need a level of confidence in your ability to do the job. Among the most telling about your abilities are your resume, interview discussions about the positions you’ve held, and experiences you’ve had across your education and career.
When considering talent for positions, organizations are looking for people who have a proven track record of outcomes in their education and work. They want to know:
• What have you actually accomplished?
• What is your track record of educational achievement?
• How have you made things better along the way?
• Have you been able to solve problems?
The deeper meaning of your story is in the difference you’ve made while in school, as an individual contributor, or as a manager, not just the titles you’ve held or the tasks that you’ve performed. The organization has ongoing goals for meeting customer and stockholder expectations, so it needs a team that can hit the ball out of the park on these goals.
What Do You Have to Offer?
Employers realize that your experience is only part of your story. More and more, human resource and hiring managers are evaluating how your track record translates into your potential. They are looking for the knowledge and skills you’ve developed during your educational and professional experience, but they also want to see your work ethic and how your personality traits fit the role and organizational culture. A variety of assessments are often used to project how well suited you are for specific roles and types of work (see chapter 10). A work inventory can help you recall, organize, and list your marketable knowledge, traits, and skills (Table 13-1). This work inventory is similar to the Personal Inventory Tool in Appendix B, but it is focused on what you have to offer employers instead of what you want from an employer.
Table 13-1. Your Work Inventory
In column 1, list the skills and experience you’ve accumulated. In column 2, list the special knowledge and credentials you have gained. In column 3, list the key characteristics of your personality that best describe you. In the proof section, list the documentation that can support your inventory items.
| Skills and Experience | Knowledge and Credentials | Personality Traits |
| Example: teaching, writing | Example: history and grants | Example: extroverted and detail oriented |
| Proof: | ||
Another big part of what you have to offer is evaluated by your “runway.” This is the future that potential leaders and hiring managers see in you. Do they believe you have the potential to grow into roles of increasing responsibility, and continue to deliver results in a big way? Your runway is evaluated on six key characteristics:
• Ability to deliver results: Have you been consistent in delivering results?
• Integrity and values: Can you be trusted to do the right thing when decisions of integrity confront you? Do you represent the company’s values?
• Coachability: Are you open to feedback to help you develop and grow?
• Developing skills and competencies: Are you developing the technical skills and leadership competencies to be able to handle bigger roles?
• Emotional intelligence: How you work with, engage, motivate, and influence subordinates, peers, and leaders indicates what your interaction and leadership style will be going forward.
• Representing the desired company image: Do you represent what the company wants to stand for? If you were with a client or in public, would the company be proud to have you represent what it wants to be known for?
Evaluating these six characteristics helps the company get a feel for whether they will get a return on their investment from betting on you. The combination of your capabilities, experiences, and runway demonstrate what you have to offer.
How Do You Manage Your Career?
Many professionals float along in their careers waiting for good things to happen to them. They’ve been in the same job for many years, head down, working hard. They expect to be tapped for the next role. You may have this same misperception—that keeping your head down and working hard will get you noticed. When reviewing talent and interviewing candidates, leaders look for patterns of achievement. Has your journey been more intentional than accidental? Do you have a career plan that you’ve been working on, expanding your experiences and skills along the way?
You need to be intentional about seeking opportunities that will give you the experiences and help you build the skills you need to be successful and get ahead. In short, you need to take ownership of your career. It may seem like people around you have someone just offer them jobs, or they always get tapped for the promotion. These people are not just lucky; there are other factors at play that influence the availability of those opportunities. You may have heard the saying, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Make sure you’re prepared. This chapter will provide strategies and resources to help you leverage the experiences you have, gain the experience you need, and propel your career forward so that you, too, can be lucky.
What Experience Do You Need?
If you’re going to be hired or promoted, hiring managers need to feel confident you can do the job and are a good long-term investment for the company. Your selection comes from having relevant experiences that can demonstrate your readiness for the position. Note the word relevant. To ensure you gain relevant experience throughout your career, take the time to identify the types of experience you’ll need to realize your career plan. You need experiences that help you develop fundamental professional skills, as well as a specialized skill set for your technical area of expertise.
Develop Fundamental Professional Skills
There is a fundamental set of skills that companies look for when they hire and promote employees. Companies need employees who are prepared and ready to contribute to achieving their goals. These five fundamental skills are considered to be the standards for high performance:
• Problem solver: Proactively identifies potential problems and takes responsibility for finding and implementing sustainable solutions.
• Accountable: Delivers on commitments. Doesn’t become victim to challenges or let excuses handicap willingness to take action. Works effectively with the team to deliver results.
• Consistently exceeds expectations: Gives an all-out effort to consistently deliver above and beyond what’s expected.
• Gets things done: Works smart on the right things, identifying and accessing the resources needed to complete every job.
• Customer focused: Advocates for customers, ensuring there’s an outside-in, reality-based perspective driving priorities and decisions.
These fundamental skills can be gained from a variety of experiences, whether from your education or your professional career. Take advantage of opportunities to develop these skills and build a track record demonstrating them. You will enhance your skills in these areas as you gain more experience in your education and work over time. As you move up in your career, you’ll add leadership competencies to this toolkit as well.
Use the gap analysis to assess your qualifications for a desired position in comparison to the company’s requirements for the role (Table 13-2). This will help you identify areas of focus for your future development and career plans.
Table 13-2. Gap Analysis
| Gap Analysis | |
| Their Requirements | My Qualifications |
| Experience: | |
| Knowledge: | |
| Skills: | |
| Personality Traits: | |
| Education and Certifications: | |
Adapted from Kaiden (2015).
Develop Specialized Skills
In addition to this fundamental set of skills, make sure you have the specialized experiences and skills needed for your technical area of expertise. As you look ahead one, two, and even three roles into the future, what experiences and skills are required for those positions?
Do you need to do more research? Here are some sources to help you investigate the type of work involved, the expertise, skills, and experiences required for your area of interest.
Industry Associations
Industry associations are a great resource for professionals to explore careers. Many have job boards, where companies post open positions in the hopes of reaching talent with experience in the industry. Here, you can get information on the types of positions, and link to job postings where you can see the qualification requirements. You’ll also find information on certificates and certifications you can obtain. You can search for associations in your industry or areas of interest at www.directoryofassociations.com.
Information Resources
There are a variety of online information resources that provide insight into different industries and associated careers. O*NET onLine (www.onetonline.org), Career Builder (www.careerbuilder.com), Experience (www.experience.com), and Indeed (www.indeed.com)provide information on required skills for different careers, the latest career news, links to job postings, blogs, and other resources.
Colleges and Universities
Whether you’re in school or have graduated, colleges and universities provide a variety of resources.
• Work with your career placement office: Their reference materials on careers and the qualifications can give you a good bit of information. Try to set up an appointment with an adviser familiar with the industries and employers you’re interested in.
• Attend career fairs: Organizations send HR and other successful professionals to represent them at career fairs. They are very knowledgeable about a number of positions and the associated qualifications and experience required. You also can gain practical insight from their personal career experiences. Even if you’re not in the market for a job, attend the fairs, visit the booths, pick up their brochures, talk to the representatives, and ask questions.
• Attend interview preparation workshops: These prep sessions help students get ready for the interview process, and the facilitators are often familiar with employers who attend their career fairs and what they’re looking for.
• Tap into the alumni network: Many colleges and universities have alumni chapters in cities across the country. Your school’s alumni office can also connect you to other alumni in your geographic area or potentially in a particular profession. Offer to buy fellow alumni coffee or lunch to get insights on their career path and advice on experience and skills required for your area of interest. Most people are willing to help.
In Your Community
Most communities have a number of groups that meet for the purpose of networking. These groups can be great places to learn more about various industries. Search “local networking groups” or visit Meetup (www.meetup.com) to find local groups you can join.
Within Your Company
If you’re already working or even a seasoned professional, you have a variety of internal and external sources for information.
• Informational interviews: Identify colleagues who are in positions of interest in your career path. Meet with them to get insights on the day-to-day and what they believe is required to be successful in the role. Refer to chapter 12 for more guidance on informational interviews.
• Colleagues: Who are the people you work with across the organization day to day in roles of interest to you? Offer to buy them lunch. Ask questions about their department, goals, daily responsibilities, skills, and work experience they find important to be successful.
• Human resources: Use discussions with human resource managers like you would an informational interview. They have a wealth of information about the organization and what hiring managers look for. Your discussion also can help them learn about areas you’re interested in, and give you a chance to update them on your current work and contributions to the business.
• Your manager: You should be having periodic career discussions with your manager. Use these meetings to get her insight on important experiences for roles that may interest you in the future. If you are uncomfortable bringing up career plans with your boss, instead talk about how you can increase your skills and provide more value to the organization.
• Professional associations: Are you a member of a professional association? Join your local chapter to build your professional network. Get to know members who hold the type of job to which you aspire. Ask them how they got there and what, if anything, they would do differently.
With this research, you’ll have a wealth of information on the experiences you need to gain. As you look ahead at your career plan and consider the required experiences, determine whether you need to adjust any steps in your plan to get to where you ultimately want to be.
Gaining Experience
Now that you have a good feel for the experience you need, let’s explore how to get it. You may already have some relevant experience that will help demonstrate your track record of accomplishments, and show you have developed many of the fundamental high performance and specialized skills employers seek. Keep a record of your experiences, skills, and accomplishments as you complete projects or key milestones in your education and work. This will help you maintain a more complete story of your experiences and impact over time. (Refer to chapters 5 and 9 for best practices on how to quantify and share your accomplishments). Consider the following sources for gaining experience and where you can point to examples.
Begin While You’re in School
Even as a student, you can gain practical work experience for your ideal career. You may not think of some of these opportunities as ways to gain experience while you’re in school, but a wide variety of opportunities exist around you.
Student Organizations
Student organizations are a great way to gain experience because they are constantly recruiting students to join and be involved. You can run for an officer position and even hold multiple positions during your tenure. Volunteer to lead a committee or chair an event. These types of opportunities help you build leadership and organizational skills.
Community Service
You could volunteer for a nonprofit organization for short- or long-term stints. These organizations often need volunteers to help deliver programs and services to their clients, or to lead or serve on committees for special events. Sometimes they need people with specific skills, such as social media or graphic design. Contact the organization to find out where they need help and how you can serve. Not sure where to volunteer? Your local United Way and websites such as Volunteerconnection.com have information on and connections with many local organizations.
Class Projects
Think of the number of times your professors assigned group projects in your classes. Most of the time, students view these as an annoying inconvenience. Instead, see group projects as opportunities to gain experience. Take the lead and offer to coordinate the assignments and meetings. Pull together everyone’s pieces into a cohesive project package and then give the presentation during class. Even if you’re not the group leader, you can influence the team’s effectiveness and gain from the experience. See if you can get your team members to work effectively as a group.
Part-Time Jobs
While you’re in school, secure a part-time job working a few hours a week. Even if your job is not in your field, you can still gain some fundamental professional skills. Many employers will be flexible with your school schedule, and some, like UPS, even help you pay for school.
Internships and Co-Ops
These are another great option for gaining work experience as a student. Businesses and nonprofits often partner with colleges and universities to hire students for short-term assignments. You can find lists of opportunities on websites such as internships.com or experience.com. Employers look for students who are studying in fields that align with job opportunities within the organization. It’s a win-win for both the organization, which gets to access fresh talent at a lower cost, and students, who can gain valuable, practical work experience, college credit, and may even earn a paycheck. Assignments often last a semester, but can extend for multiple semesters if the relationship is a good fit. Some internships even result in full-time employment after graduation. Some websites post paid and unpaid internships, including www.internships.com and www.idealist.org.
Externships With Nonprofits
Externships are similar to internships, but they’re nonpaid and noncredit. Don’t discount the value of gaining valuable work experience when these opportunities arise. You’re essentially volunteering, but you gain practical experience you can add to your resume. If the organization you want to work for doesn’t specifically offer an externship, you may need to ask for the opportunity and negotiate the details of the arrangement. Specify what you would like to learn and gain from the experience, as well as what you have to offer. That will help the organization create an experience that is beneficial and worthwhile for both parties.
Work Study
This option is located on campus, so it is convenient to your classes and where you live. Seek opportunities that have some practical responsibilities so that your time invested has a return benefit. Get an understanding of the work you’ll be doing before you commit.
Temporary Agencies and Freelance Contract Work
Find jobs using temporary agencies or find freelance contract work through online services, such as Upwork, Freelancer, Guru, Fiverr, and others. This type of work is a good option because of the short-term commitment. You can build your experience by working with the same organization or individuals repeatedly, or working with a variety of clients. (Check out chapter 15 for more information on these types of opportunities.)
Gaining Experience in Your Professional Career
You may have already started your professional career and need to gain additional experience to continue on your career track or to change career paths. How do you go about gaining that experience? Look for opportunities both within and outside your day-to-day role.
Professionals often don’t take full advantage of opportunities to expand their skills within their current role. Instead, they get into the routine of their daily tasks, just trying to keep up with day-to-day responsibilities. You have to be intentional about seeking opportunities to broaden your experiences. Go back to your gap analysis in Table 13-2 to review the skills and experiences you need to develop. Just be careful not to overextend yourself, ensuring you focus on doing a great job in carrying out all your responsibilities. Try doing the following:
• Deepen skill development: Consider what skills you can develop within your current role. Are there areas you can stretch yourself a little more? What opportunities arise, shuch as making presentations or working on project teams, can you take advantage of?
• Add responsibility: Ask for additional or expanded responsibility to gain specific experience or skills you need.
Other opportunities often are available within the company to gain experience outside your current job responsibilities. To avoid adding more to your plate than you think you can handle, determine which opportunities provide the best experience while balancing your bandwidth. However, be willing to stretch. You can often find ways to work smarter so that you can fit in some of these opportunities.
• Special projects: These help implement important company initiatives. Tell your manager you’re interested in being on the project team and why. These projects often are sponsored by and have exposure to senior business leaders.
• Company service projects: Many companies support their communities by sponsoring volunteer projects with local nonprofits. These are great opportunities to develop your skills by joining the planning committee or signing up to work at the event.
• Employee resource groups: Companies sponsor these as resources for personal career development and employee engagement. You can gain experience and develop your skills by serving as an officer, chairperson, or member of a standing committee or event committee.
• Nonprofit organizations and professional associations: Nonprofits and professional associations often need people with more seasoned skills to serve on their boards. Becoming a board member may require a more formal vetting process that works to connect volunteers with the skills and community relationships the organization needs at the time.
• Contract or part-time work: Evaluate your skills. What do you have to offer that others may need? Research job postings to get an idea of where companies seem to have skills gaps. Where do you need to expand your experience? If you’re trying to change fields, contract work or a part-time job can help build new experience. A part-time job also can help you get a feel for whether this new area fits well with your interests and career goals.
Moving Up in Your Career
As you gain experience and develop relevant skills, you’ll position yourself to move up. Remember, you don’t just automatically get promoted when it’s “your turn.” You have to keep your head up while working hard and proactively manage your career so opportunities will open up for you.
Take Ownership
Moving up in your career means taking ownership. Like many professionals, you may have the misperception that your manager is responsible for your career. Even in companies that have outlined career paths, advancement is not guaranteed for everyone. Make sure you communicate your career plan to your manager, your human resource manager, your mentor, or even other leaders. People won’t know how to help you or when to keep you in mind unless they know your skill set and your goals.
Consider Lateral Moves
Another career misperception is that if you’re not moving up to higher-level positions, you’re not advancing. Moving up sometimes means taking a lateral position to get the experience you need. Think of it more as a corporate “lattice” or “climbing wall” than a ladder. Senior-level executives often held lateral roles that gave them either a depth of experience in a functional area, or breadth of experience across the organization. See taking lateral roles as making a strategic move, like in a chess game. Identify and target roles that will help you add the skills and experiences you need to continue moving up.
Always Do Your Best Work
You may find yourself in a position that is not ideal for you, doesn’t seem important, or has its unfair share of challenges. It’s hard to see the value of your work and stay motivated in situations like these. Whether you’re in your dream job or a less desirable position, do great work every day. Execution is the foundation for getting promoted. Companies have to stay competitive to thrive in their markets, and they need a team of high performers to meet those demands. So, they look to professionals who have a solid track record of getting the job done for bigger roles and greater responsibilities.
Always Be Prepared: Continue to Learn and Grow
Market dynamics for your company are always changing—the economy, technology, and the needs and demands of your customers. If you are stagnant in your knowledge and skills, you won’t be prepared to contribute what the company needs from you. You also need to advance and expand your skills to be prepared and well positioned for higher-level roles. Work with your manager to determine the options available to you for training and development and what the company is willing to pay for. Consider your ongoing development a personal investment as well. Be willing to pay for some training programs yourself.
Manage Your Reputation
Whether you realize it or not, you have a reputation, or what we commonly refer to as a brand. Do you know what your brand is? Does it represent what you want and need it to? When considering a promotion, leaders assess whether you have the kind of brand they want to invest in. See chapter 6 for details on managing your brand.
Reach Out
In addition to your reputation, decision makers must experience and build confidence in your skills and abilities. Be intentional about creating opportunities—both inside and outside your day-to-day responsibilities—to make these strategic connections and experiences happen. Find resources outside your typical network to assist you with your work. Engage in special projects to connect with other professionals and leaders you wouldn’t have the opportunity to work with otherwise.
You also have to be intentional about how you decide to show up and engage at work. I recently interviewed the director of engineering for a fast-growing technology company. She observed that in meetings, some of the junior-level female professionals would take seats around the wall, rather than at the meeting table, immediately diminishing their value and ability to contribute to the discussion. Others sit at the table, but don’t say anything. What impression does that give others? Be intentional about creating interactions with others that demonstrate your capabilities.
Build Relationships
Relationships are a critical part of moving up. You’ve heard the saying, “It’s not who you know, but who knows you.” I add to that saying “… and what they know about you.” You need a network of people who know you and what you’re about. There are three types of relationships that are especially important: acquaintances, allies, and advocates.
• Acquaintances: People you know both within and outside your organization whom you can call for information or referrals. Be strategic about identifying the individuals with whom you need to build relationships.
• Allies: People with whom you have a strong working relationship. Allies can be at any level within your organization and can be counted upon if you need help with a problem.
• Advocates: People who are willing to recommend you to others because they are aware of your good work.
Building Your Strategic Network
Start building your strategic network by listing your current relationships and thinking about the type of relationship you need to develop with each individual (Table 13-3). Then, use Table 13-4 to help you further strategize.
Table 13-3. Identifying Your Strategic Relationships
| Person’s Name and Title or Role | Current Relationship Type (Acquaintance, Ally, Advocate) |
Desired Relationship Type and Why (Acquaintance, Ally, Advocate) |
Table 13-4. Relationship Strategy Planning
List your allies. What can you do to further support these relationships? How can you add value?
| Allies | How can I further support these relationships? |
| 1. | |
| 2. | |
| 3. |
List your advocates. What can you do to ensure they can continue to advocate for you?
| Advocates | How Do I Earn Continued Advocacy? |
| 1. | |
| 2. | |
| 3. |
Are there important relationships you need to build as acquaintances or allies that would make an impact on business performance? What advantage can you bring to the relationship?
| Potential Acquaintance or Ally Relationships | Strategic Benefit | What I Bring to the Relationship |
| 1. | ||
| 2. |
What adversarial relationships do you need to give strategic attention to? What do you believe might be the cause of the strained relationships? Are there actions you can take to improve these working relationships?
| Adversarial Relationships | Likely Causes | Actions I Can Take |
| 1. | ||
| 2. |
The timing to execute my plan will be:
I will measure my progress by:
Navigating the Corporate Environment
The corporate environment is complex, with formal and informal processes and networks, and plenty of office politics. You need someone to help you navigate this environment. Both mentors and sponsors are important relationships in your career.
Mentors—people senior to you, peers, or even subordinates—can help you understand the corporate environment and avoid career mistakes. A mentor’s primary purpose is to assist with specific development areas. Identify a development area where you could use some assistance, and determine a specific goal or outcome you wish to accomplish. Then, identify potential mentors who have the expertise in that area. You may ask a senior-level mentor to share experiences and provide feedback as you develop strategies to enhance your business knowledge or leadership skills. A peer or subordinate may help you learn new systems or technologies. Schedule a time to meet with potential mentors to see who might be willing and able to work with you. Call the person to request a meeting, even if you have to leave a voicemail; don’t send an email, text, or instant message. In your conversation, say you are looking to work with a mentor on specific career-related goals.
Sponsors, also known as champions, are usually senior-level leaders who have gotten to know you and believe in your potential. They hold a level of influence in the organization and become your promoters, speaking up about your track record and the capabilities they see in you. The degree of certainty and passion they have when they speak about you will heavily influence the perception of others. Always look for opportunities to demonstrate your capabilities among influential leaders; a potential sponsor may be among them.
Before you can successfully navigate your corporate environment, you must understand the organizational hierarchy. Does your organization have bands or levels into which every job is categorized? Where do the positions you aspire to obtain fall within that organizational hierarchy? Knowing this will help you see whether the career path you’ve designed realistically gets you to your goals.
You also need to find out how talent decisions are made and how your company invests in talent. Companies often have leadership development programs for identified high-potential talent. Participating in these programs usually opens doors to move up in the future. If leaders are seriously considering you for promotions, your profile will be part of the talent review process. If you understand how this process works, you can figure out how to influence that review process. This is why having strategic connections is so important—you want leaders to be aware of you, your contributions, and your potential.
Employee resource groups are a valuable source for helping you navigate the corporate environment. They offer social events and programs, which are often presented by senior leaders, on a variety of professional development and career management topics. Participating in these group activities helps broaden your network; you’ll be able to connect with professionals in other internal networks who are knowledgeable about the corporate landscape and rules. You’ll also have a better chance of meeting and talking with senior leaders during the events.
To Stay on Track, Reflect and Reassess
At some point, you’ll need to step back, take a look at how things are going, and evaluate if you can achieve your career goals with your current plan. How are you progressing compared with your plan? Does the career path you’ve mapped out still make sense? Do you need to adjust some of the roles or timing? Is achieving your goals possible at your current employer? Do you need to go work elsewhere to gain additional experience or credibility? Do your personal values and career goals still match the values and needs of the organization?
Summary
Determine your goals and what you need to do to achieve them. Your career path will not be linear—rather than progressing straight up, it will take side steps, twists, and turns as you gain the experience you need to be successful.
Gaining experience prepares you to progress in your career, but the value of your experience is also important because it demonstrates your capabilities and potential. Evaluate the skills you’ve developed from the experiences you’ve already had so that you can communicate to a boss, mentor, or advocate what you’ve gained. Be strategic in taking advantage of available opportunities to gain additional experience.
To move up, you’ve got to do more than keep your head down and work hard. Always be prepared and do your best work, while continuously managing your career. Understand the environment you’re in, so you can better build and leverage your connections and relationships as you navigate the corporate world.