What is career path mapping?

Those of us in career practice know the value of mapping career paths. Doing so has long-term benefits in focus, in goal setting, in goal achievement, and in evaluating options, promotions, and in job satisfaction.

Mapping our career path sounds like it should be easy. However, there is little literature detailing HOW to do it. So let's get practical. Let's take a teacher graduate (Tallo, 2020):

Dream Job: Principal

Starting Point: Bachelor’s Degree in [specialist subject]. Then Teacher's Training College for a Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching

• Milestone 1. Become certified as a teacher
• Milestone 2. Work for 5+ years while attending conferences and training seminars. May change schools in this time
• Milestone 3. Earn a master’s degree in teaching OR become Head of Department. May change schools again
• Milestone 4. Work for a few more years then get promoted to assistant principal
• Milestone 5. Work for a few years OR change schools again before getting promoted to principal. 

Those of us in career development are aware that progression may occur in many directions for achievement - and may not be linear - however, this example is relatively linear. Progression can be seen with relative ease. Drawing up milestones helps us to see where we might go. We could also draw up a flowchart, showing the "OR" decisions, if we were in a field where there were a number of different choices.

Some professions remain relatively straight-forward: qualify, entry role, middle-tier, management, and - perhaps - governance. However, other roles less clear and more complex, requiring many role-changes, department changes and possibly company changes. For example, the illustration accompanying this post shows four HR fields, shown by the background colour: an HR Advisor (green, and junior), HR Strategist (blue, senior), Customer Service Technician (yellow, junior) and an Administrator (pink, junior). Each of the three junior roles can be mapped into the senior HR role, given enough time for progression, training and education (AIHR, 2023).

Stay tuned for part 2 (here), where we look at all the steps to map and action career path.

Sam

References:

AIHR. (2023). Create Your HR Career Path. Academy to Innovate HR. https://www.aihr.com/hr-career-paths/

AIHR Academy. (19 July 2022). HR Career Map & HR Career Path Tool [video]. https://vimeo.com/736805853