When was the last time you told your career story? Was it an interview? A team meeting? With a potential business partner? The truth is, we talk about our past professional experiences and future plans all the time. The What and the How of those conversations matters.
In the next post, we'll focus on the How, but now, let's tackle the What: those aspects of your career story that make your conversations more intentional and impactful.
The model
To strategically position a discussion on your career, it's essential to understand the interplay between past accomplishments and future aspirations, as well as current abilities and potential for growth.
First, consider your career, over time. Considering your career over time lets you focus on the accomplishments and experiences that have defined your career, including previous roles, achievements, and mastered skills. While contemplating the future reminds us to emphasize where you envision yourself heading in your career, encompassing your future goals, aspirations, and the acquisition of new skills. We depict this intentional consideration on a horizontal axis.
Next, consider your work in terms of the value you create. Intentionally considering value creation, reminds us to look for evidence of great results delivered, but also our potential to continue delivering outcomes. We depict this on a vertical axis.
Together, these two axes form the following model, which we use in our work with leaders to help them express their career journey and goals.
As a result, you’ll get these four quadrants:
Quadrant 1: Past + Ability → Proven Strengths
Identifying examples that would sit within this quadrant provides you with the past successes and achievements which speak to your credibility. Examples here showcase the specific projects or roles where you excelled, reinforcing your strengths and competencies. It's a fine line between self-advocacy and bragging. You manage that divide when you anchor stories in the actual performance you delivered.
Quadrant 2: Past + Growth → Development Journey
As you speak to your career, you can emphasize your learning agility, by elaborating on challenges faced and lessons learned. Employers value those with "learning agility". In other words, those who learn from past experience and use those learnings under new contexts. Stories about challenges you've faced and how you've overcome them demonstrate resilience and adaptability. They are also an antidote to being seen as arrogant.
Quadrant 3: Future + Ability → Aspirations
As you consider career conversations, project where you see yourself heading. Integrate your past experiences with forward-looking sentiments. Be able to articulate future goals, and how your experience positions you for achieving them. This quadrant reminds you to reflect on, and communicate, what's truly important for you in achieving success and how your personal values and preferences guide you in making career choices.
Quadrant 4: Future + Growth → Growth Potential
As a famous quote goes, you are in a state of a permanent beta. Illuminate your drive for self-improvement and continuous learning. Identify areas for personal and professional growth, articulating how this development will propel you towards your future career goals. Reflecting on this, and being able to speak to it, demonstrate real self-awareness.
Your Opportunity
This simple framework has helped many of our colleagues gauge their preparedness to talk about their career. Try it. Give yourself a rating from 1 to 5 on how clearly you could speak to the key points in each quadrant. How confidently you can talk about them, how vivid and compelling would your stories be?
Here are a few coaching questions to consider, as you look at complete the framework:
Can I pinpoint a few key projects where I truly excelled, and how they highlight my core strengths?
What specific successes have I leveraged to build credibility in my career, and how do they align with my long-term goals?
How do I demonstrate my ability to apply lessons learned from past experiences to new and different contexts?
What instances in my career best illustrate my resilience and adaptability in the face of adversity?
How do my personal values and preferences influence the career choices I’m planning to make?
What are my key goals moving forward, and how do I see my existing abilities helping me achieve them?
What specific areas of growth am I focusing on to ensure continuous learning and self-improvement?
How do I plan to develop the skills necessary to reach my future career goals?
In Conclusion
You talk about your career. A lot. With different people. This model prepares you to have more targeted and impactful discussions. By answering yourself, "Do I have the content, or the What, for each of these quadrants?" you can showcase your proven strengths, narrate your development journey, project your aspirations, or highlight your growth potential. The model provides a framework for articulating the multifaceted aspects of your career story.
By strategically aligning your past accomplishments with your future aspirations and balancing your current abilities with your potential for growth, you can steer conversations towards a more insightful and comprehensive exploration of your professional journey, so that you get more of what you want from your career.
Disclaimer: This post expresses our personal opinions. Not the view of any associated organizations.