You landed your first professional role! You are elated. You want to do and be extraordinary. You are 3-9 months into your adventure and feeling confident. You have briefly thought about what is next.
While your new role may or may not align with your trade school or college training, and it isn’t the glamourous, six-figure role you dreamed about, you needed a job to pay the bills, wanted to feel like an adult, and dreaming is good for the soul. You look up from all the learning and adapting you have been doing over your first 3-9 months and more closely notice the capabilities of those you have been working with and reflect.
During this time, your manager has been providing you with feedback regarding what you are doing well and what you could improve. She has introduced the concept of a development conversation or plan. Employee development plans are action plans used by both the employee and their manager to help the organization prepare for its future talent needs. The items listed within the development plan are designed to prepare the employee for future roles and to achieve more in the workplace. Depending on the skill set of your manager and/or the opportunities within the company, these conversations might be incredibly productive, disappointing, or somewhere in between. Regardless, now is the time to own your career.
Those of you who live to work might compare your accomplishments to peers and others within and outside your organization. Those who work to live, find that life outside of work (e.g., hobbies, family, friends, concerts, sporting events, etc.) is more important to you. Regardless of your relationship to work, you might unconsciously head down the path of career complacency and take for granted that your role and organization will always exist in its current form. You are more than work or play, so don’t divert your focus for too long. Avoid being complacent and a bystander of your life and career by taking inventory. Be your own CEO.
Take Inventory
Take an inventory of your challenges and accomplishments since beginning your role and reflect.
- What are the goals you or your manager set for yourself?
- What feedback have you received from your manager or others?
- What thoughts do you have about the feedback you received?
- How do you feel about your performance?
- How did your workplace goals influence the goals you have outside of work?
- What were your highs and lows?
- How might this information inform your current and future self?
- What actions are you prepared to take regarding the feedback you received and what is the timeline for these actions?
- How will you incorporate the learning you gained from reflecting?
- How might the Dunning-Kruger Effect impact your observations?
The goal is to learn as much about yourself, how you are being perceived, and how you are navigating your current organization. The more aware you are of your strengths, values, personality, likes and dislikes, the more informed your career and life choices could be.
Take an inventory of your environment. You might not be a futurist like Elon Musk or dream of being president, but looking ahead helps you own your career. Is there a particular role that excites you? When exploring your career options, use occupation lists, labor market statistics (o-net, salary tables, future job outlooks) and conduct informational interviews external to your organization. Within your own organization, job shadowing and conducting informational interviews are ways to get exposure to other roles and build your network.
What additional skills, abilities, experiences, and education do you need for the future roles you are exploring? Jot them down and create a draft career plan…and I say draft because you want to have the freedom to be agile when life happens, and to filter through what you find enjoyable and challenging. Be candidly honest with yourself. It is not helpful to continue to pursue medicine when you don’t especially like or excel at any of the sciences.
Take inventory of yourself and your career yearly (The last week of the year is my preference, as things tend to slow down for me). Speaker and author Earl Nightingale said, “Remember: jobs are owned by the company; you own your career!” Your life and career experiences will be a reflection of the choices you made and the luck that came your way. Be the best CEO of your life journey.