Introduction to Career Progression
Some people are happy to float along in their work. For the rest of us, advancing our career in some way is not just a goal — it’s necessary to feel successful and fulfilled.
Career progression is all about pursuing and taking opportunities for growth, challenge and achievement. Understanding how to navigate this path effectively is crucial, whether you’re at the outset of your career or reaching for the next rung on the ladder.
But let’s be clear – the term ‘career progression’ is about more than climbing the corporate ladder. It includes the strategic planning and action necessary to achieve both your professional and personal goals, whatever they may be.
A well-defined career progression framework is essential for setting goals, boosting motivation, and providing career clarity. It helps in evaluating the current framework, making employees feel valued, and increasing retention.
This comprehensible guide offers a range of actionable strategies to help you define career progression on your own terms and fulfil your potential.
Starting with self-assessment and goal setting, you’ll learn how to identify your career aspirations and create a roadmap to achieve them. Next, we’ll look at building relevant skills and forging professional relationships, together with ways to evaluate your progress and fine-tune as you go.
We’ll discuss how promotions and transfers can act as milestones in your career journey, and how staying marketable and well-branded ensures you remain competitive and confident. By reading and applying the guidance in this article, you’ll gain the confidence and know-how to drive your career forward.
Self-Assessment and Goal-Setting
Evaluating Your Current Position
You can’t know how to progress if you don’t look at where you currently stand.
So to set the stage for creating your career progression framework, start by conducting a thorough self-assessment. Reflect on your current skills, interests, values, and personality traits to understand where you stand in your career. Consider your strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and challenges within your field or industry.
So far, so good – assessing current skills and qualifications is something most people do when looking at moving forward. But far fewer people take the opportunity to examine their own satisfaction levels. And since, for most people, satisfaction is a key ingredient of making career progress, this is a glaring omission.
So ask yourself: how satisfied are you with your current role, responsibilities, and work environment? How happy are you, both at work and when you get home? How do you feel at lunchtime on a Tuesday, or on Sunday night as you think about the week ahead?
This new awareness is key to help identify gaps and areas for improvement.
Setting Realistic Goals
Once you have a clear understanding of your current position, it’s time to set realistic and achievable career goals. Well-formed goals act as a roadmap for your professional growth, and no career development plan is complete without them.
Start by defining what you want to achieve in both the short and long term. Make your goals SMARRT—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Resourced, and Time-bound—to enhance your chances of success.
Break these goals into smaller, manageable milestones and actions and set deadlines to keep yourself accountable. Setting clear, realistic, and time-appropriate goals can significantly boost your motivation and drive career progression.
Aligning Personal and Professional Objectives
In our work as career coaches, we see too many people treating their career pathway and personal goals as completely separate entities. Make no mistake – ignoring the whole-life context of career development increases the risk of conflict and unhappiness. So think of your work-life relationship as a system, where factors in one area affect factors in the other. Personal development is important too.
A well-structured career development plan can help in aligning personal and professional objectives by setting goals for career progression, acquiring skills and knowledge, and creating a roadmap for advancement.
What are your personal goals and circumstances, for example your health, your finances, your relationships? How might changes to your career affect these, and vice versa?
Building Relevant Skills
Identifying Skill Gaps
To enhance your career progression, first identify your relevant skill gaps. In simple terms – if you know where you want to go, you can identify the skills needed at that end point. As you now know your current situation in detail, you can list the skills you don’t currently have and would need to gain. That said, it’s not always clear which skills you’ll actually need.
If that’s the case, start by evaluating the skills valued by your company or industry. Speak to managers, leaders and people currently in your target roles. Ask about industry changes and trends. Tools like surveys, assessments, and performance reviews can provide further clues about potential skills gaps, making it easier to target the best training programs for career growth. Training courses are essential in filling these skill gaps.
Pursuing Professional Development and Training Courses
A good development framework puts your understanding of gaps to use. So once you’ve identified the skill gaps, focus on exploring potential training and development opportunities to fill them.
More than half of companies opt to train their own internal staff to fill open posts – because (a) it’s often cheaper and (b) they recognise the value in nurturing existing talent. Whether you’re targeting in-house or external moves, consider working with a career coach or mentor in addition to any formal, structured training.
Leveraging Online Courses
Online courses offer a flexible and cost-effective way to acquire new skills or enhance existing ones, making them an excellent tool for career progression. Whether it’s learning new tech skills, improving your ‘soft’ skills or gaining a project management certification, online learning platforms provide courses on virtually any topic.
Make sure you take time to make sure the courses will give you what you need. Are the providers well regarded? What alternatives are there? Which courses did current post-holders take? What’s the success rate of alumni? Do you need a particular certification, or will a record of attendance do?
Forging Professional Relationships
Internal and External Networking
Relevant networking, both in the same company and beyond, is a cornerstone of professional growth. Of course, knowing your colleagues well can help with your day-to-day role, streamlining problem-solving and enhancing collaboration.
Introducing a clear career ladder within the company is crucial for career progression, as it helps attract and retain talent by meeting team members’ expectations regarding their advancement.
Beyond business as usual, though, this is primarily about reputation and opportunity. If people know you and appreciate your unique value, they’ll think of you when opportunities come along. Externally, forging new connections and nurturing older classmates and colleagues will maximise the opportunities that come along. But remember, quality outweighs quantity, so make each connection meaningful and focused on mutual growth. And pay close attention to your professional brand – more of which below.
Leveraging Social Media
Social media platforms, in particular LinkedIn, can be invaluable tools for professional networking. Creating a strong online presence (again: brand, brand, brand!) can help you connect with industry peers, expand your network, and showcase your skills.
Social media also helps you to stay informed about the latest industry trends and can help you tap into the hidden job market by following companies and organisations and joining relevant groups. Engage actively by sharing relevant content, commenting on posts, and participating in discussions to establish yourself as a thought leader. Don’t make the common mistake of assuming thought leadership is for the few; it’s a key professional development tool.
Seeking Mentorship
Seventy-six percent of people acknowledge the importance of having a mentor for career progression, yet only 37% have one. This is good news for you – by getting a mentor, you’ll put yourself instantly ahead of most of your competitors.
You could choose to explore formal mentors, who are either paid or unpaid and who advertise themselves as such, often as part or a mentorship scheme or directory. Alternatively, reach out to someone whose position and achievements you admire, who’ve covered relevant ground in their own career paths. Suggest an informal meeting, like a virtual coffee, to establish a rapport. Be authentic, enthusiastic and transparent in your approach.
A good mentor will help you understand your opportunities and limitations, and suggest training and development, along with other actions, based on their own knowledge and experience.
Remember, effective mentorship (particularly the informal, unpaid variety) is not just about receiving guidance but also about offering value back to your mentors, fostering a mutually beneficial relationship.
Evaluating Progress
Leveraging Performance Reviews
When used well, performance reviews can be invaluable in evaluating your career progression. They can provide a structured opportunity to assess your progress and achievements and identify areas for improvement.
Regular conversations about performance, rather than annual reviews, allow for timely feedback that aligns closely with your work cycles. But as we all know from experience, performance reviews aren’t automatically beneficial. Your manager needs to be helpful and structuring; the reviews need to be valued, acted on and respected; and you need to treat them seriously as a valuable opportunity. Performance reviews can also help in developing a career progression plan by outlining steps for advancement within the company.
Seeking Additional Feedback
Feedback is not just about receiving information; it’s about actively using it to assess yourself and propel your career growth. Seek feedback from various sources — managers, mentors, peers, and even customers.
Gaining feedback from multiple sources is important to avoid skewing the results. And whether you arrange a formal 360 review or design something more bespoke yourself, make sure you trust the views of the people you reach out to. And remember, the real value lies in what you do with the feedback.
Adjusting Career Plans
Career growth is a dynamic process, because, well, things change. Those changes could be external or internal, in our professional or personal lives – but either way, if you don’t adjust your plans as you go, you could find yourself working hard for something that’s no longer accurate or relevant. In other words, your entire career structure could be off-kilter.
So revisit your plans annually or after significant milestones to ensure it remains aligned with your personal and professional circumstances. This systematic approach ensures that your career path remains relevant and directed towards meaningful growth. Incorporating career development plans can further help in setting career goals and planning for progression.
Opportunities, Promotions and Transfers
Assessing New Opportunities
When considering career progression, the opportunities you encounter could be with your current employer or elsewhere. You may have strong feelings about this – for example, perhaps you really want to make a bigger change and leave to find new challenges – or you might prefer to follow the best opportunities for career growth, wherever they may lie.
Either way, how you assess opportunities should always be contextual. Look at your personal and professional circumstances, check in with your SMARRT goal – what’s the best overall move to make? What are the factors that actually make an opportunity good?
Preparing for Promotions
To set yourself up for future promotions, start by maintaining a record of your achievements and the skills you’ve acquired over time. Many people leave this too late – so start early. This could include sales numbers, project outcomes, or any professional training and certifications you’ve completed. Keeping a detailed list will make it easier to demonstrate your unique value and suitability when you’re ready to progress.
Regularly discuss your career goals with your manager – particularly during reviews – and seek advice on what you can do now to prepare for advanced roles. This proactive approach not only showcases your initiative and potential, but helps you understand what managers are looking for in a recruitment process. Additionally, being prepared for a promotion often involves negotiating a pay rise based on your professional achievements and career progression within the company.
Applying for Internal Transfers
Of course, career progression is not always about promotion. For many people, progression includes lateral (or sometimes even downward) moves.
Preparing for a sideways shift is, in many ways, the same as getting ready for promotion – though can sometimes be easier and informal. You need to understand where you’re going and what they need, and to demonstrate and prove your value. In more technical terms, make sure you understand the company’s policies on internal transfers, which often include prerequisites such as a minimum period in your current role and specific performance criteria.
It’s also a good idea to discuss your intentions with your current line manager to maintain transparency and gain their support.
Staying Marketable
Keeping Up with Trends and Changes
We’ve touched on this above in the social media section, but it’s worth a special mention of its own. Many of the points we raise in this article will be easier and more effective if you know your onions. Imagine trying to be a thought leader, or network effectively, or do well at interviews, if you’re not well informed about trends and patterns in your field. Not too likely!
To keep relevant and competitive, and to underpin your other career development strategies, stay in the know. Regularly read industry publications, attend conferences, and participate in networking events. Engage with industry leaders on social media and join professional associations to keep that flow of information coming.
What’s more, understanding how these trends can affect your career structure and further development can help you stay marketable by providing clarity on your career progression and aligning it with performance reviews, and goal-setting.
Optimising Your Professional Brand
This is a short section, but one of the most important in this article. Because if people don’t see who you want them to see, all your efforts will be in vain.
Your brand is your best asset – or it should be. This is true both online and offline. Ensure your LinkedIn profile and other social media platforms showcase a professional image, highlight your top achievements and skills, and shout your value from the rooftops. And whatever you do, don’t forget storytelling and passion, without which any brand is dull as dishwater.
Conclusion
Throughout this guide, we’ve covered a wide range of strategies and tools to support your career progression. We’ve emphasised the importance of self-assessment, goal setting, skill development, meaningful networking, and continuously seeking opportunities for growth within and beyond your current role.
Career development can be complex, but armed with a detailed plan and a well-stocked toolbox, you’re now in a great position to grow and succeed on your own terms. Remember, forming an effective career progression framework is important for job satisfaction and professional development, as it enhances your engagement and adaptability in various roles.
You’ll need determination, effort and resilience – but keep your head out of the sand. Stay flexible, always question your assumptions, and be prepared to adjust your plans over time. Personal development plays a crucial role in achieving your career goals and overall professional growth.
And as you progress, keep coming back to this guide as a roadmap to help you make strategic choices for both personal fulfilment and career success.
