Career Mobility Pathways

Elite performers don't stumble into their next chapter — they design, engineer, and execute their way to it. After guiding hundreds through career transitions, I've developed a framework that transforms fuzzy potential into decisive action. I used it for myself, and now I share it with others going through their own transitions: 1️⃣ 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲𝘀 Start with identity, not job titles: - What archetypes do you currently embody? (engineer, connector, wife) - What archetypes do you aspire to? (thought leader, founder, mother) This reveals underlying motivations that job descriptions can't capture. 2️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝘅 Rate each aspirational archetype on three dimensions using a 1-5 scale: ✅ Excitement 5: Energized just thinking about it 3: Neutral or ambivalent 1: Bored or unmotivated ✅ Difficulty 5: Already embodying this identity 3: Unclear what changes would be needed 1: Requires major life pivot ✅ Impact 5: Aligns with life's calling 3: Moderately aligned 1: Potentially negative impact 3️⃣ 𝗣𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Analyze what emerges: - Which paths get you most excited? These reveal intrinsic motivations. - Which paths seem most accessible? These offer immediate next steps. - Which paths align with your values? These reveal deeper purpose. Look for relationships: - Which paths are complementary and reinforce each other? - Which paths are sequential where one leads to another? - Which paths are concurrent and can be pursued simultaneously? 4️⃣ 𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗛𝘆𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲𝘀 A lot of people get stuck in reflection, journaling, and hypothesizing. 📊 Enough thinking. Time to get real data by rapidly testing hypotheses: 1. Conversations with people living your target archetypes 2. Relevant resources (books, podcasts) 3. Low-risk experiments to try these identities A client tested his "investor" archetype by joining an angel group with minimal commitment — revealing he missed the team dynamics from previous work. I used to think I wanted to do BizOps -- and then discovered legal and accounting are energy-draining for me. Now I delegate those tasks away! 5️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 Career reflection isn't one-and-done: 1. Form initial hypotheses 2. Test with small experiments 3. Gather observations 4. Refine understanding 5. Gradually increase commitment as clarity emerges 👇 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 What separates exceptional careers from good ones isn't just talent—it's deliberate reflection and strategic choices. This framework isn't about finding the "perfect" next step but creating alignment between who you are, who you want to become, and your desired impact. With this clarity, your search becomes less about chasing opportunities and more about recognizing ones that truly fit. Take thirty minutes today to begin this reflection—your future self will thank you.

The long road to career success is a two-way street between the efforts of the manager and the individual employee. We traversed one way in a recent post discussing ways in which managers can help their teams and employees succeed. Now, I would like to take a stroll to the other side and share some insights from my own experiences as well as suggest some ways people can forge their path.   The most important way to take charge of your own career is self-advocacy. It starts by picking a destination or at least direction. Then looking at the different roads that lead toward the industry or discipline of your choice so you can start advocating for opportunities to learn and to take responsibilities that will get you there.   While a “road map” is important, I also recommend keeping an open mind in the face of an unexpected detour or fork in the road. In my own career there were several pivotal moments where I faced choices that seemed less than ideal at first. But these detours turned out to be invaluable learning experiences that shaped my professional journey. One such moment came early in my career. I was working on payload fairings for rockets, a role that I thoroughly enjoyed and found engaging, but one that landed squarely in the middle of my comfort zone. Sure enough, discomfort came shortly, in the form of the Berlin Wall falling. The event triggered a domino effect of restructuring, program cuts and workforce reductions. I was asked to shift my focus to working on boosters — a task I perceived as far less exciting.   Reluctantly, on my manager’s advice, I decided to give it a shot. I embraced the work with curiosity and immersed myself into learning about composites design, stainless steel tank design, and leading a comprehensive test and development program. The decision proved to be a turning point in my career. We presented our findings from the test program I led to NASA and the Air Force, and the experience broadened my perspective and skill set in ways I never anticipated.   A well-prepared traveler also keeps abreast with the conditions not only on their planned path but also alternative routes. For example, having knowledge about manufacturing and products makes for a better engineer. Another aspect that determines the quality of one’s journey is their fellow travelers. As vast as the industry space seems, it can sometimes be a small world. Maintaining good relationships and not burning bridges keeps you from getting lost with nowhere to go and no one to help.   For anyone embarking a journey for career advancement, my advice would be to stay open to embracing new skills, opportunities, and people. Who knows where the road may lead? In the famous words of Dr. Suess - “You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the one who’ll decide where to go.” I look forward to your comments on your own career journeys! Happy travels!

The quiet crisis nobody's talking about is that 66% of your employees are mentally checked out at work. 😳 I've been analyzing engagement data and the numbers are alarming. Only 34% of workers feel truly engaged and the rest are just going through the motions while updating their LinkedIn profiles. When I dig deeper with leaders, they're shocked by what disengagement actually costs them: • $4,129 per employee replacement (conservative estimate) • 44 days of productivity lost during hiring • Countless hours of institutional knowledge that walks out the door But what fascinates me most is the companies bucking this trend aren't throwing money at fancy perks or office ping-pong tables. They're doing something much simpler… Showing people a future. When employees can see their career path within your organization, 94% will stay longer. & not just a little longer - YEARS longer. Growth-oriented companies are crushing their competition with 26% higher profits and significantly better customer satisfaction scores. Why? Because humans crave progress. When we can't see forward movement, we look elsewhere. Most companies get this completely backwards. They wait for annual reviews to discuss career growth (if they discuss it at all). But your people are thinking about their future DAILY. If you're not part of that conversation, someone else will be. The leaders winning the talent war are making growth pathways visible, accessible, and concrete. They're asking better questions: ↳ "What skills does Sarah already have that we're not utilizing?" ↳ "Which adjacent roles could David move into with minimal upskilling?" ↳ "How can we create stepping stones between entry-level and leadership positions?" The ability to map and communicate career paths is no longer an HR nice-to-have. Because the companies that retain institutional knowledge while their competitors constantly onboard newbies will dominate their markets. How visible are your internal career paths? #EmployeeEngagement #TalentRetention #CareerGrowth #WorkforceStrategy

Are You Stalling Your Own Career Growth? You’re ready for the next big step—whether it’s a promotion or a new opportunity elsewhere—but something is holding you back. It’s not a lack of ambition, qualifications, or capability. It’s the concern that there’s no one to backfill your role. This is especially challenging if you want to move up within the same company. You’ve become indispensable, and that can feel more like an obstacle than an advantage. Leadership sees your value right where you are. If you’re feeling stuck because your current role depends too much on you, consider these three strategies: 1. Develop Your Successor Now Proactively mentor and upskill a team member who could take on key aspects of your role. This not only helps you, but it also demonstrates strategic foresight and leadership—qualities that make you an even stronger candidate for advancement. 2. Redefine ‘Value’ in Your Organization Being indispensable in your current position can limit mobility. Shift the perception of your value from doing the work to elevating the organization. Communicate how you can drive impact at a higher level and how a well-planned transition benefits the company long-term. 3. Make the Case for a Structured Transition Rather than waiting for leadership to solve the backfill issue, present a clear transition plan. Show how your move can be managed effectively—whether through interim solutions, process documentation, or a phased transition. Executives want solutions, not roadblocks. One of my clients expressed wanting to stay at her current organization, but she felt trapped—she was ready for the next level, but leadership hesitated to move her because there was no clear successor. We worked together to identify a high-potential team member she could mentor while documenting key processes to ensure a smooth transition. Concurrently we worked on a way she could pitch herself into a newly created role around her skillset that would serve a need for the organization. (In my Career Velocity program we call that "Write & Pitch Your Job Description." It worked!) By proactively presenting a succession plan, she shifted leadership’s perception of her from indispensable in her role to indispensable to the company’s future. Within months, she secured the promotion, confident her team was set up for success. Staying stuck isn’t an option for high performers. The best leaders don’t just fill roles—they build pathways for future success. If you want to move up, start paving the way today. #CareerVelocity #QualifiedIsntEnough #jobs

Career paths rarely run straight. The messy bits matter too. My parents cleaned houses and drove taxis in Australia. They wanted something different for me - a stable career, the safe path. In reality, there have been plenty of detours: 1. Fired from my first UK job. → I was struggling & it showed. → Started freelancing, building skills. → Worked from South Africa to Azerbaijan. 2. Left corporate for startups. They didn't want me. → I learnt to code online. → 8 months of job rejections. → Volunteered on startup projects part-time. 3. Rejected from startups, I built my own. → Co-founded a startup guiding patients through fertility treatment. → Raised >£1m. Helped 50k patients across Europe & the US. → Acquired by the UK’s largest fertility clinic chain. Here’s what the messy years taught me: It’s OK to step off the ‘traditional’ career ladder. ↳ Promotion isn’t the only marker of growth. ↳ Progress can mean learning new skills or finding work that fits. Expand your network. ↳ Events can feel less scary if you research speakers/attendees before. ↳ Try co-working spaces, small meetups, local groups. Way more relaxed. ↳ 3 real conversations beat 30 business cards. Curate your own learning. ↳ Growth can come from podcasts, side projects, conversations. ↳ Not just courses or promotions. Sideways is progress too. ↳ Taking a role at the same level builds new skills. ↳ AI makes solo contributors as powerful as teams. The squiggly path can often lead to better places. Which career pivots have opened new doors for you? --- ♻️ Repost to share with others navigating a squiggly line career. Follow Elin Ng for more.

Over the last month, the number of career conversations I’m having with mid-career friends and family, especially those in their 40s and 50s, has noticeably increased. The questions are more direct. And more personal. How do I protect myself from layoffs? If I do get laid off, what comes next? Is my line of work still viable? These are not abstract questions. They are rooted in fear, financial pressure, and identity. This is not an easy moment to be asking anyone to “reinvent themselves.” A recent The Wall Street Journal article put real stories behind these conversations. While many of the people profiled are earlier in their careers, the dynamic is familiar: pragmatic transitions, real tradeoffs, and career moves driven by disruption and a desire for durability. For mid-career professionals, I see two viable paths forward. Both require letting go of linear career thinking. Path 1: Moving from desk-centered white-collar roles into skilled trades and applied, hands-on careers. These roles offer more reliable demand and clear value creation, requiring last-mile, hands-on capabilities that are rooted in the physical world. In our day to day work, we are already seeing Guild learners make thoughtful transitions into vocational and skilled-trades work. Path 2: Staying in white-collar work, while building resilience far more intentionally. Boundaries are blurring, with design, engineering, and product converging, and marketing, sales engineering, and sales increasingly overlapping as work becomes more outcomes-oriented and data-driven. In this world, effectiveness, leverage, context and the ability to work across domains matter more than titles or ladders. Both paths are about adaptability. Both are about building capabilities that travel. I do not believe white-collar work is going away in an absolute sense, but it is changing in drastic and fundamental ways. We should not resort to panic. The moment requires honest conversations about what’s ahead, pragmatic funding to meet the moment, and a willingness by both employers and employees to learn and adapt. I recommend reading Allison Pohle and Te-Ping Chen’s story to see how real people are navigating these transitions. Link in comments.

The usual assumption is that workers leave declining occupations and move toward growth. New data suggesting potentially the opposite! Great new paper by Xi Song, Jennie Brand, Sukie Xiuqi Yang, and Michael Lachanski in AEA P&P introducing the concept of the "mobility trap." Among workers in high-AI-exposure declining occupations, movers are 5.2 times more likely to transition into another declining occupation than into a growing one. Nearly 70 percent of those moves are lateral or downward in occupational status. Much discussion still treats mobility as the safety valve. If one occupation weakens, workers will reallocate. But reallocation is not frictionless. Workers in declining occupations are not simply flowing toward the expanding frontier. They are much more likely to remain inside the basin of decline. Workers in growing occupations are actually less likely to move than workers in stable or declining ones, which suggests that recent mobility looks less like opportunity-seeking and more like forced adjustment under pressure. Among movers from declining occupations, the odds of ending up in another declining occupation are 2.44 relative to a stable destination, while the odds of moving into a growing occupation are only 0.47, both benchmarked to stable destinations. The labor market is producing constrained mobility patterns with weak bridges into growth. Entering a declining occupation is associated with much worse outcomes. Workers moving into declining destinations experience upward mobility only about 25 percent of the time, versus 34 percent for those entering growing or stable occupations. And for workers moving from declining to declining occupations, only 30 percent see upward mobility, meaning roughly 70 percent are downwardly mobile or see no occupational earnings gain. So AI may accelerate occupational decline, and moreover the labor market may be poorly equipped to move affected workers into stronger opportunity sets once that decline begins. If the transition system is this sticky, then retraining rhetoric by itself is not enough -- instead, are institutions building real bridges into growing occupations, especially for workers starting in exposed, declining fields? #AI #LaborMarkets #Mobility #FutureOfWork #EconomicOpportunity

Career Ladders Are Dead. Here's What's Next. Stop designing for yesterday's careers. Most L&D is preparing people for a world that no longer exists. After years working with organisations on career development, I've seen a fundamental disconnect between how we design learning experiences and how careers actually unfold today. We're still building ladders in a world that rewards gardeners. The majority of professionals now follow non-traditional career paths, yet our development programs haven't caught up. Here are 5 career design principles every learning professional needs to embrace: 1️⃣ Exploration > Climbing 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Careers follow predictable upward ladders with clear promotion paths. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: Modern careers zigzag across roles, functions, and industries. ❌ Designing learning paths that only prepare for vertical advancement ✅ Creating experiences that develop transferable skills across functions and roles 2️⃣ Emergence > Planning 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Career success comes from following a detailed five-year roadmap. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: The most valuable opportunities are often unpredictable and emerge unexpectedly. ❌ Building rigid development programs with predetermined outcomes ✅ Designing learning that builds adaptability and opportunity recognition 3️⃣ Journey > Milestones 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Success is measured by achieving specific positions and titles. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: Fulfillment comes from continuous growth and making meaningful impact. ❌ Structuring development around achieving specific positions ✅ Crafting experiences that celebrate continuous growth and impact 4️⃣ Purpose > Performance 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Career development means improving technical skills and hitting metrics. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: Long-term engagement requires alignment between work and personal values. ❌ Creating learning that focuses only on immediate role performance ✅ Integrating reflection on meaning and purpose into development experiences 5️⃣ Networks > Knowledge 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Individual expertise is the primary driver of career advancement. 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: Relationships and community connections create the most powerful opportunities. ❌ Designing individual-focused competency development ✅ Facilitating meaningful connections and communities of practice As L&D professionals, we need to radically reimagine career development experiences from onboarding through retirement. It's time to stop teaching people how to climb ladders and start helping them cultivate gardens - with multiple paths, unexpected growth, and diverse possibilities. Are we designing paths for the past? Or creating experiences that prepare people for today's non-linear reality? Working in career development or L&D? I'd love to continue this conversation. Drop a comment or DM me to share how you're rethinking career experiences.

With a booming economy, Houston has both jobs and talent. Yet, too many workers are left on the bench. The Burning Glass Institute has worked with the Greater Houston Partnership’s UpSkill Houston to pilot a new approach. Our Jobs That Mobilize framework recasts a social problem – sidelined workers – as an untapped source of talent. Jobs That Mobilize identifies the roles that not only face big shortages and are critical for strategic growth sectors but that also offer the strong upward mobility and good wages for workers. Having uncovered those “golden gateways”, the task becomes finding people with many of the right skills and investing in targeted training to bridge the remaining gap. This isn't about lowering standards; it's about recognizing and cultivating potential more effectively. Think of the inefficiency: companies spend months searching for ideal resumes while workers who meet 80% to 90% of the requirements are ready and waiting. The solution lies in smarter hiring – and more strategic talent investments. Alongside the Partnership and UpSkill Houston, we were able to design nontraditional pathways that will unlock opportunity for workers and give employers access to hidden talent. More than a list of occupations, this analysis maps the transitions workers have successfully made, uncovering the skill-building steps that lead them upward. By analyzing the transitions that most reliably lead to economic mobility for workers while most effectively filling jobs vital to Houston’s growth, we identified specific pathways with remarkable potential: medical assistants earning around $39,800 can boost their pay by $16,000 by moving up to medical equipment preparer jobs. While they have most of the required skills, they need to gain a few more – hazardous materials management, machinery, and materials science – to make that leap. From there, they can advance to surgical technician, earning $88,300—more than double their medical assistant income. So glad to coauthor an essay in the Houston Chronicle together with Greater Houston Partnership CEO Steve Kean describing this work – and the national implications that it holds. And deeply grateful to Patti Constantakis and Walmart for their support for this groundbreaking work - as well as to BGI colleagues Stuart Andreason, Katherine Townsend Kiernan, Mariano Mamertino, Olivia Gunther, and Debbie Wasden. #Houston #jobs #careers #economicdevelopment https://lnkd.in/eZCgZnWR

Promotion ≠ Progress. In Medical Affairs, lateral moves can fast-track your career more than a title ever will. For years, we were told there’s one path: MSL → Medical Advisor → TA Lead → Medical Director → Senior Director Linear. Predictable. Upward. But here’s the reality: careers don’t look like ladders anymore. They look more like maps now. Some of the smartest leaders I know grew by stepping sideways, not just up. Here’s what that looks like: MSL → Medical Advisor → RWE Manager → Senior Product Manager → Senior sales lead → Franchise Head → Director, External Engagement → Senior Director, Digital Operations → Senior Director, Medical Excellence. No two steps the same. Each one builds range, systems thinking, and cross-functional influence. And most importantly, the possibilities and combinations are endless. Because in today’s Medical Affairs landscape, growth isn’t about staying in one lane. It’s about learning how the whole system works. Don’t just chase promotion. Build perspective. 💬 What’s the most unexpected move that shaped your career?