Take control of your career development

Hi everyone, I'm Rosalind and I lead our internal talent here at Miro. In today's video, we're going to be discussing how to own your career development. We're going to be covering the first step, which is knowing yourself and the vision for your career. Step two, which is building a path towards achieving this vision, and a couple of last tips for me. Welcome to the Life at Miro YouTube channel. Let's get started. Career development, I would say, is actually a very interesting topic these days, particularly how we define career development. Historically, career development has meant, okay, I'm climbing the corporate ladder. It just means I'm going from maybe being an individual contributor to a manager, the level up from that, et cetera. But now with modern work, a lot of things are shifting and how we see career development is also shifting. We're really moving away from this idea of, I'm climbing the corporate ladder, there's only way but up, and we're moving towards really thinking about career development as a much more complex topic. It's more of a jungle gym than a ladder these days. How you grow and how you develop is not so much of looking up, but it's thinking, hey, what's best for me as a person? Where do I want to go? What skills do I want to be developing? It's really unique to you. Instead of this being something that comes from a company that says, hey, here's our corporate structure, here's how you go up, it's really about understanding yourself, what do I want to be doing, what do I want to be growing in, and really mapping that out for yourself. When you look at people that have been very successful in their careers, they rarely are clear, linear, and going up. It's mostly a little bit over here, a little bit over there, zigzag down here, and then we go up there. I really encourage you to think about your career like this. It's more of a jungle gym rather than a ladder. Another thing to think about is you are unique. You have your own passions, strengths, goals. You know yourself much more than a company that an employer knows you. It's really up to you to build your own path and understand what is best for you knowing yourself. In general, another shift that is happening is we are focusing a lot more on skill development rather than resume development, especially considering there's a lot going on in the market with macroeconomics. It's really up to you to think about, hey, what skills do I want to be learning, how do I want to be growing, rather than what's going to be my new LinkedIn title. Again, I would really encourage you to think about what skills do I want to develop rather than what title do I want to achieve. The first step, if you think, okay, I'm ready to grow my career, what do I do from here? The first step is actually knowing yourself and knowing where do you want to be going. This sounds maybe basic, but it's actually the hardest part of growing your career. You have to do a lot of self-reflection, a lot of retrospection about what have I seen in my previous career, what have I loved, what has maybe drained my energy, what has given me my energy. I would actually encourage you to do this not on your own, but also with a group of people that you trust. Think about yourself almost like you are your own company. All companies have advisory boards. They have people that help them, that help guide them in the right direction. It's the same for your own career, so use those around you. Maybe your manager, maybe former managers, maybe it's family members, team members, anyone that you think really knows you, supports you, and can maybe advise you on where you can go next. Those are great people to form your own personal advisory board for your own career. Another thing that can be really helpful is speaking to people that have done a similar career move. For example, I have done this in the past. I've looked on LinkedIn and I've said, okay, who is anybody that's maybe remotely around me that has done a similar shift to me? I've just reached out to them and said, hey, you've done a career move that I'm interested in doing. Can I talk to you? Can I get some advice from you? You would be really surprised how many people are really kind with their time and they're willing to help you, sit down with you, take you out for a coffee, and give you some advice on how they made that move. That can be some of the best career advice that you receive. Another important resource that you can use is your manager. We always recommend having a career conversation with your manager whenever you're in this exploratory phase of trying to understand what is the right step for me. Your manager hopefully is a person that you really trust, that really believes in you, that really knows you, and they can be incredible advisors on what the next step is for you. Maybe they can share a little bit more about their own career, about what they have seen. Maybe they can help tweak a little bit your plan, your guide for yourself. Always would recommend reaching out to them and getting their advice. Another part of this first discovery phase of what is the right step for you is doing a retrospective on your own career life so far. Sounds a little bit silly to do, but it can be actually a really important exercise. You can go through and see, hey, what have been some of the highlights and lowlights of my professional career so far? What have been experiences that really gave me lots of energy? What are some experiences that drained my energy? What are the types of people that I liked working with? What was the environment that I really felt I grew the most in? Really writing these things down and thinking critically about it can help set you up for the next phase, which is planning and thinking about what's next for you. So once you've done step one, you know where you're going. As I said, this is the toughest part, so congratulations for finishing step one. Then it's how do you actually achieve this goal? From here, there's a lot of things that you can do. One of the first things I recommend is building a PDP, which is a personal development plan. This is where we actually build off of the first phase of discovery that we have done before, understanding where do you want to go? What does your next vision look like? You then start building a path towards this. Building a path towards this can take many different forms. Something that you can do, for example, especially if the role is internal that you know you would like to go into, is start speaking to that team. Talk to that manager. Talk to those team members. Get to know them a little bit more. Get to know their role a little bit more. Ask them tons of questions. Be curious. And also be open about your ambitions of potentially joining their team. They can also give you advice on, hey, if you want to join this team, here's the skills I would really recommend you be developing. Here's what we really look for when we hire. So it's a great opportunity to leverage those internal resources and really understand better, firstly, is this the right role for you? And also, if it is, what sort of skills can you already be working on to get yourself ready for that next step? Another element that you can do to really get yourself ready for your next step is ask for more opportunities to grow within your role. A great thing that you can do when you're preparing for this is to ask your manager, hey, what are some things that I can do now knowing for my next step? So maybe this is doing a stretch assignment. Maybe this is taking on more responsibilities. But people that are very smart about planning their career, they're already thinking, what can I do now that makes me an easy hire later? So anything that you can do to say, yes, I've been working on that, yes, I've been developing those skills, yes, I've been taking on more tasks, this makes the hiring team an easy decision to say yes to you because you've already been on this development journey. So your career development doesn't just happen when you get that new role. It actually happens within your current role. You can be doing so much growth, so much advancement, and really set yourself up for success for the next step while you're still in your role. Here at Miro, we have developed quite a few rubrics, competency matrix, and career ladders that can really help you know, what can I do to get ready for my next step? So for example, if you know you want to be growing to maybe the next level within your current team, you can go and look and say, okay, compared to right now, this is the skills that they are looking at in our next role. And what you can do, again, together with your manager is do a skill gap analysis. So you can better understand where you want to be, where you are now, and then build learnings, trainings, development towards that. Another resource that you can use is actually looking even at job descriptions. Whether you're looking for a role internally or external in the market, it's great that you have something listed there that says, this is exactly what we're looking for. These are the exact skills that we need you to have in this role. So use that resource as well. Look through and think for yourself, okay, do I have those years of experience? Have I developed myself in that skill? Do I have that tool? If you don't yet, again, do this skill gap analysis and understand, okay, here's where I am, here's what the job description says, and build your path to get you so you're matching what that job description is looking for. When it comes to developing your career, moving inside a company is also a great opportunity to try something new and really explore your opportunities. Of course, you can always do moves within other companies. That's also a great way to develop your career. But the real advantage of moving inside a company is you have this network of people around you that believe in you. You've built up social capital. They know how you work. They know how passionate you are about what they do. And that means they're probably more willing to take a bit of a chance on you, let you try something new because you've already proven yourself. So if you are inside a company thinking about making your next move, navigating this internally is actually a great opportunity for you to try something new that maybe somebody externally wouldn't take a chance on you for. Now because they know you, they believe in you, you can move internally and have a great next opportunity. I'm about to contradict myself now because despite all the planning, all the steps, everything that you can do to grow your career, sometimes life goes in a different direction. And my advice for you in this moment is to also be agile and be open to things that may come your way. For example, you may have a certain idea in mind of this is my next move. I know this is the right one for me. But suddenly within your company, there becomes this other opportunity that sounds super interesting. And someone approaches you about it. If you've successfully done step one and you know who you are, what drives you, what passions you have, you'll be able to accurately analyze this opportunity and say, hey, is this really the right one for me? Yes or no. If it's a yes, then go for it. Sometimes these things happen. And again, your career is a jungle gym, not a ladder. So it could be you take an extra little side move over that you hadn't anticipated, but it can be a really great move for you. Alternatively, sometimes life happens not in a great way. And we are not immune to different market shifts, macroeconomic changes, and the move that you wanted for yourself suddenly is no longer available to you. Instead of getting down about this, although you can be down for a moment, think a little bit about how you can creatively pivot your career and think a little bit different. In these moments where we have to be adaptive and change our goals, also new opportunities can come up. So don't get down about thinking, hey, I thought I was going to achieve this goal by this timeframe and now this opportunity isn't there for me. Think a little bit differently about how I can pivot. What else can I learn in my role? How can I continue to get myself ready for this next step? And that will again make you a more adaptive and agile employee. And again, an easy yes to hire. I'll give an example of my own career. So I started off my career like many people, not totally knowing exactly what direction I wanted to go in. I tried a few different industries, a few different roles, and then I decided, okay, great. I really want to focus on recruitment. This is something that brings me a lot of passion and a lot of energy. Then from there, what I decided to do is move continents and I kind of reset my career all over again. And on the face of it, it could look like, oh gosh, you took a step back, you took a more junior level role. But I knew with my vision and my career for my life, long-term having a multi-continent experience, multi-market experience was going to be much more advantageous for me. From there, I was growing with my recruitment skills. Again, I really was loving it, growing in my company. And I was always kind of thinking, hey, I would love to branch out and learn something a little bit more beyond just recruiting. I would love to get to know other sides of the people team, but I didn't quite know what exactly that looked like. And I had been approached for potential opportunities to do this kind of sidestep and get to know another world. But because I knew it drives me, I know it makes me passionate, I had actually said no to some of these opportunities because I knew myself and I knew it wouldn't really make me happy long-term. Fast forward to being at Miro, I have now seen this opportunity to go a little bit more outside of recruitment. And that's why I'm in my role today, focusing more on internal talent development. When this opportunity came around, I knew this was my chance, this was my time to really expand my skills, expand my scope. And again, it doesn't need to be a step up, a level change, a higher sounding title. And so we need to focus on what brings us happiness, what brings us passion, any sort of sidesteps are all part of the journey. If there's anything that I want you to take away from listening to this video, it's this. Firstly, your career development is unique to you. It's such a deeply personal experience. It's not up to looking at a career ladder, somebody else's career that you've seen around you. It's about knowing yourself and what really drives you and makes you happy. The second element that I hope you take away from this is a career looks more like a jungle gym than like a ladder. And what that jungle gym looks like, how many steps there are in it is again, totally unique to you. Thirdly, use your resources. Thankfully, you're not in this alone. You have many people around you that care for you, that support you, that know you and want to see you succeed. Use these people and build them into your advisory board. They are your best asset and can really help you grow your career. Next, be agile and open to other opportunities that may come your way. As much as we plan, as much as we try to predict the future, sometimes things are out of our control. So be open to opportunities that still give you energy, that still match what you're looking for. Sometimes they can even be better than what you had originally planned. Ultimately, you want to make it an easy yes to hire you. If you've done all of this work of understanding, here's who I am, here's my vision, you build a strong path. You know exactly what skills you needed to develop and you have developed them. You have a team of people around you that are able to advise you and help you along your journey. You are going to be an easy yes to hire you for your next role. And that brings us to the end of this video. Thank you so much for watching and I hope it was helpful for you. If you like this video and you'd like to see anything similar, feel free to like and subscribe. We have many more coming up after this.