According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average employee changes their jobs 12.4 times between ages 18 and 54. Nearly half of the job changes happen in an employee’s early career, between ages 18 and 24.
So, how can employers get their employees to stick around long term, to stay for promotions, and to pursue their career development in-house?
Career mapping (also known as career pathing) is used by organizations to retain talent by promising a traveled career map to a successful future. A career map is a visual representation of that future.
A career map shows you the visual journey, including steps to take toward career goals. This framework showcases your career progress so you can clearly identify the following:
- Where am I now? What’s your current job title?
- Where do I want to take my career in the future? What are your future goals?
- What career plans do I need to set in order to achieve my goals?
Your career growth plan will also consider what’s important to your employer, which is why this exercise can be completed on your own or with input from your manager. Here are just a few skills that can help aid your career mapping process:
- Self-Reflection + Self-Assessment
- Learning + Research
- Goal-Setting
What Is Career Mapping?
Traditionally, career mapping or career pathing is offered by employers to show potential or current employees an overview of the development opportunities that are available.
Career mapping is usually used as a retention tool. By creating a road map of the job roles within the company, companies can entice their employees to stay within the company while making lateral or vertical moves in the employee’s careers.
But what if you mapped your own career? What if you create a map—or a series of maps—that allows you to pre-plan various career paths?
In this article, we’re diving into how employers create employee career paths, what’s included in career pathing, and how we can reverse-engineer this tool to take back control of our own careers and professional goals.
Employer-provided career maps are typically comprised of the following:
- A roadmap detailing different roles within the company
- Detailed job descriptions for each job, including the skills and experience necessary to perform the role
- The resources—like in-house training, course reimbursement, or skills training—needed to advance to the next level of roles within the company
What Are the Benefits of Career Mapping for Employers?
Career mapping empowers employees from day one by giving them a look into their potential future at a company. Envisioning a reliable roadmap can entice employees to advance their career development with a company instead of job searching every other year.
Some of the most attractive benefits for employers looking to create and share career maps include:
- Improving employee retention
- Boosting employee engagement
- Increasing unified teamwork
- Identifying skills gaps
- Upskill your workforce
- Succession planning
- Attracting new candidates
- Improving diversity in leadership
By envisioning career maps, employers can also create new employee career advancement opportunities.
Career mapping helps employers and employees to unlock possibilities for expanded training programs, create a pipeline of mentorship programs, expand their individual and collective ambitions, and help employees climb their own career ladders.
By prioritizing best practices to chart and empower an employee’s career, an organization is also empowering and retaining top talent. The ultimate objective for career mapping is creating a vision-first workplace that allows all participants to take thoughtful control of their careers. For employers looking to impress and empower their new hires, career mapping is one of the key steps in onboarding a new employee and is way more fun than climbing the corporate ladder blindfolded.
What Are the Benefits of Career Pathing and Personal Career Mapping?
So, you’re considering creating your own career map, but why? There are some profound benefits to taking a good look at your career, especially as it relates to your personal values, your aspirations, and all of your goals.
Creating a goals-based path to pursue
Career mapping allows you to gather your goals, your aspirations, your skills, your strengths and weaknesses, and your values into one place. From here, you can build a career map that prioritizes what’s most important to you right now—and what might become important in the future, which brings us to our next point.
Allowing different potential career paths to emerge
When thoughtfully career mapping your own path, you might focus on one set path with a large, ultimate goal. However, you might also remain open and willing to explore different emerging paths.
Career mapping can be beneficial when you are thinking of switching jobs, making a lateral move, swapping industries, or when deciding whether or not to make a big career move. In these times, your career map (or maps!) can look like a thorough pros and cons list.
Our advice is never to get stuck on a dream job or a dream “end goal.” Instead, we encourage you to explore different routes, unexpected changes, and exciting additions you can make to your career maps. You can even create several career maps that span industries, decades, skill sets, and life goals.
Showing a thoughtful direction in future job interviews
Believe it or not, career mapping can be useful when navigating your interview process. Use your career maps to inform your job search. The next time an interviewer asks, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” you can actually melt their mind with your meticulous career map.
Plus, recruiters will be thrilled to interview a candidate that has taken the time to do this exercise proactively!
Developing skills and competencies that can superpower your career
When career mapping, you’ll inevitably create a list of goals, including skills to learn, experience to gain, and connections to make. While crossing these professional to-dos off your list, you might notice your career map expanding. Suddenly, you can take another route—and it might suit your current goals more than your original map. Effective career pathing must remain flexible and open to pivots when necessary.
