Career Paths Unveiled: Past Trends and Modern Realities

Talent Report+THRIVE

Description: Embark on a journey of self-discovery and professional growth, where we unravel the intricacies of modern-day career development and its pivotal role in personal and organizational success.

Resources:

Developing Career Paths Resource

Learning & Development

MRA Membership

About MRA

Let's Connect:

Guest Bio - Amanda Mosteller

Guest LinkedIn Profile - Amanda Mosteller

Host Bio - Sophie Boler

Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler

Transcript:

Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:04
Unknown
Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA, the Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler and we are so glad you're here.

00:00:21:05 - 00:00:44:01
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. All right, Well, hi, everybody, and thanks for joining us today. And today's podcast, we're going to be talking about career pathing. And I'm joined by Amanda Mosteller, who is MRA's director of talent development and organizational development. So we really have a true career expert with us today. So I welcome you back, Amanda. You always do such a great job.

00:00:44:01 - 00:01:12:21
Unknown
So I'm excited for this topic. Thanks for having me back and I love this topic as well. So, absolutely. And I know I talked a little bit about this before, but I know crew passing is not just for younger emerging leaders who have just started out in the workforce. It's really for everybody. So I guess kind of diving in then what is career path and exactly in why would you say it's important for an organization?

00:01:12:23 - 00:01:54:17
Unknown
Yeah. So career pathing is typically quite what you would think. It would sound like taking a role or a career from entry into the organization and mapping out the path within that career within your organization. Why it's important is because it gives people a roadmap to see where they can go. Whether I'm coming in new to my career, as you were mentioning, or just newer to the organization, I might be popping in mid-level, but just seeing what is the opportunity for me in this role, in this space, in this organization?

00:01:54:17 - 00:02:22:21
Unknown
What does that pathway look like? Is it mapped out? Is it defined? And can somebody walk me through it? Helps initially engage folks in not only their current space, but seeing the potential. I was just talking with my mother the other day about how I had 27 and a half years left before retirement. All right. Almost there. So close.

00:02:22:23 - 00:02:47:03
Unknown
And I said to her, gosh, 27 and a half years, that feels like a long time. And if I thought in our organization, those 27 and a half years are in this role I'm in right now and there's nowhere else to go, no other way to grow my skills or move eventually into other spaces and roles within the organization.

00:02:47:04 - 00:03:19:16
Unknown
That really becomes a defeating lot regardless of how much you love an organization. And I love being a part of me very much. But 27 and a half years in one role feels like a long time right? So that's why it's so important, that opportunity to look forward in your future and see evolution for yourself happening within an organization creates that that engagement and that increased retention and that connection to the company.

00:03:19:18 - 00:03:51:10
Unknown
Yeah, for sure. This is something I think Jim Morgan talks about in some of his talent reports. I feel like speaking speaking for like a younger generation employee, surely, like when you're getting a job, like you talk about your current role, but it's like the career path is just as important as like this job that you're getting. So, I don't know, just talking to friends, I know some of them are like, Hey, if they don't kind of map out where I'm going to be in the next couple of years, I'm not interested.

00:03:51:11 - 00:04:24:10
Unknown
So I know how important it is now. And I know you'll get to kind of like the evolution of it, how it's changed. But I just I've seen like a very big emphasis on career passing and making sure that employers talk about it right away in the interview process even. That's such a good point. In doing interviews in the past six months, I have noticed an increase in people asking me instead of my saying, Where do you see yourself in the next 3 to 5 years?

00:04:24:10 - 00:04:52:04
Unknown
That standard question and most people, if they're any type of practice to interview viewers, they are with your organization. But if I have them turning around asking me what's the growth opportunity for this type of role within your organization and to get to where you're mentioning where we'll go during our conversation today, questions changing around what's the growth opportunity in your department?

00:04:52:06 - 00:05:20:16
Unknown
That's not the question as much anymore as what's my growth opportunity in your organization? Meaning your company. So within the company you work for, not just your department. And that's that's telling that people are asking an interviewer is they're asking the hiring manager and they're changing their wording. And that's on purpose again, too. So then can you kind of talk about how career passing has evolved throughout the years?

00:05:20:18 - 00:05:51:21
Unknown
And then why is that evolution really crucial for both employers and employees? Well, get to it like now. So. So traditionally, a career path. As an example for a sales professional, you come into an organization and you might be working foot in the door. Well, at lead generation and lead uncovering and then handing those leads off to a salesperson.

00:05:52:02 - 00:06:14:09
Unknown
And that salesperson might have sales engineers come in depending on what they're selling. Eventually you become a sales manager. There might be an account executive in there where the size of territory or the size of client gets bigger and bigger. So you're getting bigger deals, eventually become a sales manager, then you become the sales director, then you become the sales VP, right?

00:06:14:14 - 00:06:56:06
Unknown
Very linear career path and that is a defined career path. All within one type of job, role building on one another. That's the traditional career path. How it has evolved is people no longer think of a career path as a linear within this same type of job role. I mentioned that question changing the wording of the question changing, and that's because people are starting to say what skills and abilities can your organization provide me for myself that I can apply as I grow in my career?

00:06:56:08 - 00:07:25:06
Unknown
People we know individuals coming to an organization and staying for 15, 20, 30 years is less and less common. Regardless of how amazing your culture is, regardless of how engaging and supportive and development focused your organization might be. And that's because if I'm sitting and waiting to become that leader or that manager or that next role, that means I'm waiting for somebody else to choose to leave in.

00:07:25:06 - 00:07:55:20
Unknown
That can take a very long time, especially the higher up in an organization you go. So people are looking more for what knowledge, skills and abilities can you give me? Not necessarily just in one space, but cross-functionally in your organization? What that means is, as people are asking that question and that question is changing, instead of what is the growth opportunity in your department to what is the growth opportunity in your organization?

00:07:55:22 - 00:08:40:16
Unknown
I might come in the door as a sales individual and skills that I'm looking for around maintaining multiple projects, time management skills, influencing for others, maybe owning a big opportunity within my organization and getting buy in across all groups. Those are all skills that can translate to any job role. So what I might find as I come in as a lead generation expert in a sales space and within two years I'm moving over to the marketing department because I'm starting to hone what does the buyer look for and how do I communicate that to the buyer effectively?

00:08:40:16 - 00:09:06:18
Unknown
And marketing does a lot of that stuff also. So as I'm honing those skills, an opportunity in marketing is opened up and I might look over there to start building that skill. Now I have uncovering needs and I have really translating to what the buyer is looking for through my marketing expertise and then an opportunity in our bigger project management group opens up some of the skills I've been looking for.

00:09:06:18 - 00:09:49:11
Unknown
If I want to become a leader someday does include managing multiple irons in the fire. I need to be able to do that. So I'll move over to that role because now I'm continuing to develop these knowledge, skills and abilities that eventually will get me into leadership positions. Now look at all these different spaces. I've been within one company, so when we talk about creating this modern evolved way of looking at career pathing, talk about engagement and retention, people aren't waiting till the next account executive leaves so that an account manager can become an account executive so that a lead generator could become an account manager.

00:09:49:13 - 00:10:18:18
Unknown
You're doing a lot of waiting. That's what you're relying on your organization to do. And so looking at this evolution of career passing instead on where do you want to be in five years? Where do you want to be in ten years? Do you want to move into leadership? What types of skills do you want to grow in an eye as your organization can help identify opportunities for you that leverage those skills and will develop those skills in you?

00:10:18:20 - 00:10:49:14
Unknown
You've created a different kind of career path that will really build your bench. I mean, now you have folks really learning all these different areas of your business, creating lots of effective, impactful needed skills as they move up and a well-rounded employee base, of course, THRIVEs a really effective and impactful organization. So what is modern day career path thing?

00:10:49:15 - 00:11:22:04
Unknown
What is it evolve to? Not linear is what you really spiderweb it in a way. And yeah, focusing on transferable skills. Why is it crucial? For the same reasons. Everything else that we talk about in terms of development and culture and building your bench and growth is crucial. It's it's engagement for your employees, which creates high, effective, high, impactful workforces to THRIVE your business's success.

00:11:22:06 - 00:11:47:17
Unknown
Yeah, that's a great point. And I feel like they've even started started the whole career passing thing, even on like when you're an intern, I know some intern programs. It's now not just focused on the type of internship you have. Maybe you're marketing intern, but they're putting you through all different departments so that you can start to see what the organization is as a whole.

00:11:47:17 - 00:12:21:06
Unknown
And then you're also gaining skills from each of those departments. But your focus is a marketing term, but later on, maybe when you're applying for jobs, that's when you can apply what you've learned in the other departments. Kind of like what you said, the universal, universal transferable skills. So that leads me to another question on can you give any examples of how individuals can really assess those skills and interests and even identify them?

00:12:21:06 - 00:12:44:20
Unknown
How do they know that? Yeah, So first it takes some self-reflection when you get asked that question of where do you want to be in five years, you better know the answer. Where do you want to be? If the answer is not a people leader, that's important to know because that's a different set of skills that we could develop in somebody that you might not be interested in.

00:12:44:22 - 00:13:14:16
Unknown
If it is becoming just the best of the best and in your space, then let's identify what the best of the best looks like when we talk about how can you identify it, how do you know what to work on? There are I think it's a common misnomer that a 360 tool is something that only a leader in a high level leader should go through.

00:13:14:18 - 00:13:40:18
Unknown
Three sixteens or just one eighties even, but are excellent sources of identifying your hidden strengths, your blind spots and things like that. And then identifying does that apply in the job? Well, I want the job well, I have. I might have a blind spot in an area that I don't need to use right now anyway. And so I'm not going to focus my energy on developing it.

00:13:40:20 - 00:14:09:20
Unknown
But to that question of where am I trying to go with my career, I might need it when I try to get to that level. So what do I start developing now? So knowing the answer to the question is number one, knowing that there are tools out there that give you a well-rounded view of just universal competencies. Two, they don't have to be related to a certain type of leadership.

00:14:09:20 - 00:14:42:13
Unknown
There are tools out three, six tools out there that that we utilize that could apply just just to an individual. Then the third one is start looking around at your organization, at what roles pique your interest, have conversations with your manager and with your peers around. What about those roles? Pique your interest so that you can start to get a view of what types of skills and activities are enticing to you and engaging to you that you want to learn how to try out.

00:14:42:15 - 00:15:09:03
Unknown
So what? What levels and a career do I want to achieve? That's an answer you have to figure out for yourself. It might take some self-reflection and chatting with folks within your organization to see whether that's something of interest, chatting with your folks in your network outside of your current organization to see if that's something of interest. Using some tools that aren't just self reflection.

00:15:09:03 - 00:15:30:10
Unknown
Because I love to THRIVE self awareness. Very few of us are just fully self aware in all of our strengths and the way we get self-awareness is by having somebody else give us some feedback. So looking at some tools that are out there for that and then starting to chat about what job roles are interesting to you and why do shadowing.

00:15:30:12 - 00:15:56:24
Unknown
Go spend a day watching that job role to see if it is interesting it c It might sound cool. We can create some really cool job titles. That doesn't mean the role is as exciting as someone might think. So figuring out what's going on in your organization role wise, asking for opportunities to shadow, and then sitting down with with your manager to say, Here's what really did interest me about that role.

00:15:56:24 - 00:16:21:04
Unknown
And then that can create we can you can start to get an idea of what types of jobs interest you and therefore what skills might be transferable to those jobs within your organization or any organization. And to your point, sometimes it's hard to identify your own skills and maybe you only have a couple that you write down or couple that you're definitely self aware of.

00:16:21:06 - 00:16:41:13
Unknown
But or it's like personally help me as to like just taking a step back and asking maybe it's your manager or just a peer at work. Like in some their opinion. I know I've done that before and they're like, Well, you know, you did this project and I think you did a really good job on these things during that project.

00:16:41:13 - 00:17:01:02
Unknown
Maybe you should start looking at that. So I think just trying to be outside sometimes and getting their perspective helps too, when you're doing some of that stuff. Yeah, it has to be somebody that you would define as like. And I talk to folks about this a lot and I say, Don't let the phrasing throw you off, but a safe person.

00:17:01:02 - 00:17:22:01
Unknown
And what I mean by that is somebody that I think I've talked about this before, but somebody that you're open to their feedback, they will be honest with you, not in a hurtful way. So they're safe from that perspective. They'll be honest with you, but they're also somebody that you value and trust their opinion so you'll be less resistant if you hear something you don't like.

00:17:22:03 - 00:17:43:05
Unknown
So who are those people that you could ask how that project went and you'd be open to hearing if they didn't basically just sing your praises and tell you how amazing you are, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, kind of moving on here. We've talked about this on the podcast, but we also hear it a lot about work life balance.

00:17:43:09 - 00:18:14:01
Unknown
So I'm kind of thinking about that. What advice do you have for individuals who are trying to balance their personal life and their professional goals while they're planning their career path? You know, I've I've mentioned up until now about competencies and what are the elements of that role you like and what are things that they're doing. But there are also, depending on where you want your career to go, education requirements, certification requirements.

00:18:14:01 - 00:18:44:18
Unknown
I mean, if you want to be the best of the best and managing large projects, you probably want to go get your PMP certifications. So what does that look like? So connect your HR Department and and i know we're in HR Organization. And so, of course, amanda's going to say go talk to HR But for real, your HR department as all of these, you know, job descriptions which which they can look at trending lee And they also know, you know, trending.

00:18:44:18 - 00:19:15:16
Unknown
Lee Okay, you're talking about being a people leader one day. Most of the time, people leaders tend to require a certain level of education requirement, not always, but most of the time they'll certainly know in their own organization what's required to see whether you have that. Are there certain certifications that are required? Because if if that's an opportunity for you that you want to this balance, they'll also know what resources are out there to help you start going down that path and how much is too much right away.

00:19:15:18 - 00:19:48:16
Unknown
So we have team members that move into the learning and development space. And if you want to be the best of the best in certain things, there are certifications we would encourage you to get. Some of them are quick and easy to do certificates. Some of them are larger, you know, six month to a year and several tests certifications depending on your goals and your aspirations for your career, we might say you should go the certification route.

00:19:48:18 - 00:20:24:10
Unknown
It takes a bit longer. Here are several different ways to do that, and we can talk through what makes the most sense and when starting makes the most sense for somebody. So the balance becomes what things outside of shadowing in my organization and talking to mentors and doing some development within my daily work hours, what else is out there and what else might I need to invest my time and energy into to get to the level of what I'm aspiring to get to?

00:20:24:12 - 00:21:00:24
Unknown
This to the same word Moore claims in one sentence. But because some of the stuff you just can't do it work, there's just going to be some things that that would be more impactful. A pimp certification, for example, whether you want to be a project manager or not, that teaches you a lot of great organizational and executional structure and how to keep people and a large group on track and how to communicate effectively and what metrics you can utilize to not only measure success but identify budgets.

00:21:00:24 - 00:21:21:17
Unknown
And there's a lot of things that would be transferable to other roles that that certification would teach you. And then going and trying it at an organization. But you can't get that through many of your own internal companies. You have to go somewhere to prep for that and take the test. So there's going to be outside work put into it.

00:21:21:17 - 00:22:18:15
Unknown
So it's talk with your HR Department. They know those kinds of things. They have that knowledge. Yeah, absolutely. What we're talking about building your career path. How can individuals really align their personal values with their career choices? And why is that alignment really important for long term satisfaction? This is where i always encourage folks, excuse me, to really lean on their network, whether it is an internal network or their network outside of their organization, because values of time, values of family, values of excitement in travel, the values around what you just are comfortable and not comfortable doing, whether you will ever be the person that does that or not.

00:22:18:17 - 00:22:46:21
Unknown
Those are things that you really need to understand. Does this industry require that? Does this level of career growth require that? There was for myself, for example, there was a long time where I had a vision of sea level at a high international company that was my I will be that someday I will be a chief learning officer.

00:22:46:23 - 00:23:15:21
Unknown
I was very adamant that was going to be the end. That's my where I'm trying to get to. And then things in my life changed and I continue to evolve and I said as I started to connect with mentors in the space and those that are at that level, it's a very exciting level. But I started to say, Gosh, you're you're, you're always on an international level that includes travel.

00:23:15:24 - 00:23:34:00
Unknown
Do I really want to travel? I got to work at an international company and started to recognize I want to be home at my values. You know, I want to be at home at night to help my kids do their schoolwork. I want that on my own. No one's telling me to do that. It's just something I want.

00:23:34:02 - 00:24:03:21
Unknown
And so it really it really made me pause and think. So I think before you start to go down the path of investing your time and your energy and your plans and your excitement into something, really understand the whole of what that role looks like to see if it's what you want and also continue to reassess what I wanted at 25 and what I want now.

00:24:03:23 - 00:24:29:07
Unknown
My birthday is tomorrow. So what I want as I turn a milestone birthday tomorrow are vastly different. And I think that's something we need to remember too, in this whole conversation is it is okay for your career path to change? Yeah, that's a great point. That's you need to. I thought that in the show notes, it's okay. That is change.

00:24:29:09 - 00:24:48:23
Unknown
So I feel like a lot of people want things kind of set in stone. Like, like you said, like I want to be here and that's where I'm going. But it is okay if it's if things change. So I told my husband we were having one of those big, you know, rarely in our lives conversations that we one tends to have.

00:24:48:23 - 00:25:21:12
Unknown
And I said, gosh, if we could pull it off, I would totally be happy to just, you know, retire and well, who wouldn't be happy to in the next five years? So, you know, he'd always gone on this. You want to be a C-suite. I mean, we talked about this for a very long time. So my move to say, I think I just like to write, I think I would be very happy, you know, stepping back and writing and just write books and write articles and just do that.

00:25:21:14 - 00:25:41:05
Unknown
And he was like, okay, well, I don't think one a different one doesn't just do that. Five years ago, I invested some time. I thought, maybe I want to be there, see, like I don't want to be a C-suite leader in a giant international company. I've learned I don't want that. That didn't align with my values. I want to run my own business.

00:25:41:10 - 00:26:08:02
Unknown
That's what I want to do. So I went through the process to get my LLC and I went and got individually certified in several things so that I was a certified seller of those things to THRIVE my business. And then I started building my network of of others in this space with their own LLC. And for some reason in my head, I'd be less busy if I ran my own business.

00:26:08:02 - 00:26:34:10
Unknown
I'm not sure what I was thinking. Newsflash, everyone, you're not less busy. You're having. It's fun. So. So then I thought, Well, I'm home with my kids, so I'm not traveling internationally, but I'm working at night and in the morning and on weekends and always. And I was like, That doesn't really align with my values either. So it's okay to to have your career path change up.

00:26:34:12 - 00:27:09:07
Unknown
And I think the big value to an organization is recognizing people do that too. They can invest your time in somebody that, you know, came in and they were really excited and then they all of a sudden sit down with you ten years later. And they're like, So I've been thinking for a while, wrapping up here today. I know we've given a lot of great practical, practical steps, but do you have any last steps or pieces of advice that employees and employers can really take to create their own personalized career path and plan?

00:27:09:09 - 00:27:42:16
Unknown
And if you have any resources that you kind of want to draw up here today, I think that would be a good ending to that. So, yeah, so a great step for organizations is to create that kind of open door conversation process where employees can come and chat with HR About what are job roles and what are kind of some universal expectations at different levels within the organization or different job roles.

00:27:42:16 - 00:28:24:08
Unknown
Are there certain certifications that i'm completely unaware of and and for the organization to have an understanding of resources you can connect team members to. It's excellent to have tuition reimbursement, it's excellent to have certification. You know, spotlight staffs or bonuses if you go get the certification or will pay you back for it. But to also have that resource bank of where people can go to get those certifications and especially, you know, price preferred means for you as an organization, build that resource bank so that when folks do ask their managers or do come to your company's HR

00:28:24:08 - 00:28:51:15
Unknown
Department, you have an answer for them from an individual perspective, it is one of the answer to that question. So do some self-reflection and prepare that kind of stuff, but also take some stock. And it doesn't have to be a full 360 assessment tool or anything. But to the resources, what what would I consider my strengths to be?

00:28:51:15 - 00:29:12:19
Unknown
Look at the job description you applied for. What about it made you apply for it? If you can look back at different roles, you've had within your career, what are those skills you've built up over time? Create your own skill bank so that you can reflect back on that skill bank and say, Here's all the things I've learned, here's what I have, here's how I know I'm strong in it.

00:29:12:21 - 00:29:53:05
Unknown
What gaps am I seeing? Because only you know your career better than anybody else. So when you know what things you've done better than anybody else. So really take your own self-assessment, make your own list of what you've created and what your strengths are, so that when you go have that conversation, folks can try to help you say, this type of job role utilizes that this type of job or utilizes that to help you get a sense for those things, you can go to it from a resource perspective, depending on the industry space that you do think you want your career to grow in.

00:29:53:05 - 00:30:20:10
Unknown
Again, it might not be a specific job role, but it might be an industry specific. There can be lots of industry competency models out there that you can do your own. Do I think I need to grow? I'm I'm strong in this or have mastered it. ATD has one for learning and development professionals. They have one for sales professionals.

00:30:20:12 - 00:30:59:04
Unknown
Sherm has them for HR Professionals and hrc has them for HR Professionals. P i don't even know who does the vp the project manager certifications, but it really depends on industry space, where or what assessment tools are out there to find out where you are within that space. But there's tons of them out there. Just give it a google and you will find find lots of resource is depending on what industry peaks your interest and why.

00:30:59:06 - 00:31:23:23
Unknown
Yeah, for sure you can put some resources that we use in the show notes below as well. But that was, that was great advice. And with Amanda and I think everyone, whomever where they are in their career can relate to this somehow, which is, which is really great. So thank you for coming on today and being today's guest and really sharing your expertise in this area.

00:31:24:00 - 00:31:45:09
Unknown
I always love your examples and the tools that you share to our listeners. If you liked our chat and topic today, don't forget to share our episode and consider joining MRA. If you aren't a member already. Like I said, we have all the resources you need in the show notes below, including resources on this topic. Career paths and the course.

00:31:45:09 - 00:32:06:24
Unknown
We'd love to hear from you, so feel free to chime in and share any great success stories that you've had of your own career path or career path planning otherwise. Thank you so much again for tuning in today and we will see you all next week. That wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign in to connect.

00:32:06:24 - 00:32:22:07
Unknown
For more podcast updates, check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA's 30 minutes THRIVE so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.