4 steps to designing the development career you want

In today's rapidly changing job market, traditional career paths are increasingly unlikely to work out. The old model of climbing the career ladder, where success was achieved by simply “keeping your head down and putting in the work,” is fading out, explained career and leadership coach Dan Freehling, during a recent Devex career digital event. According to Freehling, who is the founder of Contempus Leadership, this shift stems from “the modern career paradox,” a phenomenon driven by the transition from the industrial era to what is now referred to as the innovation or knowledge era. “We’re moving away from people and careers fitting into a preordained framework,” Freehling said. This realization leads to two things: the need for adaptability and the growing importance of personal meaning, he explained, emphasizing that while modern professionals understand the flexibility required — constantly pivoting, learning, and experimenting — what’s less obvious is the personal element. In this new era, it's essential to honor individuality, purpose, and innovation — which is differentiation. In other words, you want to be highly adaptable and highly purposeful, Freehling explained. This is what led Freehling to create the “Career Design Map.” “Navigating a meaningful modern career is exactly that — navigating,” he quoted from his book, emphasizing that a career today requires more than following a step-by-step guide. Instead, it calls for a map, a tool for understanding the terrain while adapting to the unexpected, and ensuring your career aligns with both adaptability and purpose. Below are three steps to building your own career map based on Freehling’s template. Understanding the career design map Freehling’s map is built on a cartesian coordinate system — i.e. an x-y axis grid/graph. On the X-axis is “Career” and on the Y is “Leadership.” Freehling defined Career “as confidence in self and from relevant others.” He also defined leadership as “enabling people to achieve a common purpose.” The map is focused on the “meaningful four” plotted career types: contributor, go-getter, expert, and executive, and the “dangerous seas” at the edges and extremes of each career and leadership axis. “The idea throughout the map is that there's no right or wrong answer for where you land in this but there are some dangerous extremes to look out for when you're way too low or way too high on your career advancement or your leadership,” he said. The first career type, contributor, is someone on the lower end of both career and leadership, but not so low as to be in the sea of invisibility or disengagement, Freehling explained. “You are doing enough, have a ‘work a day attitude,’ you work to live. You don't live to work. You're doing enough to contribute to a team or to a cause, but not so much that you know it's a main part of your life.” People in this career type are often more interested in prioritizing friends, family, volunteering, and other hobbies and activities, he said. Then there is the go-getter. This is when your career advancement is still relatively low. It’s not so low that you're in invisibility, but you're leading beyond what would be expected of someone in your role, Freehling explained. “You're doing more than your job title suggests, more than someone at your career level would be expected to do, you're really going above and beyond for the team,” he said. When you're in that, you have the choice of moving toward either expert or executive, he explained Expert is when you're relatively high in career advancement — not so high that you're in the sea of arrogance — and you're relatively low in leadership. You're more of an individual contributor than a leader, said Freehling, explaining that the confidence in yourself and from relevant others, as well as the value you're bringing to the organization, is high. Lastly, executive is when you're relatively high in both career advancement and leadership — and you're able to do this in a way that's sustained, open, and humble on both, he said. Being aware of dangerous extremes If you are too low on the career axis, you could be in the sea of invisibility. “The confidence in yourself and others is too low. You are not getting noticed in the workplace, your contributions are being overlooked,” he said. Freehling says this commonly happens after people graduate from university — they have academic skills but find it hard to apply them to the working world. → How to get out: The key here is gaining self-confidence, building networks, and building others' trust in you, and visibility. Arrogance. This is when your confidence in yourself and in those around you is too high, he explained. “You've accomplished a lot, and then the humility is not there. You're not listening to new trends or new ideas, you're putting out the same old stuff. And you're overly confident,” he said. → How to get out: Getting out involves purposefully inviting dissenting opinion — “asking people to tell you where they think you're missing something, where they think that you should go instead,” in other words, it’s inviting feedback to maintain a more humble posture so you can return to being on the executive and expert levels. Too low on leadership leads to being disengaged — this is where you don't really have a purpose that is driving you. You might be working somewhere where you're also not feeling particularly motivated about the team, the organization, or the cause, he explained, adding that “Oftentimes this is when you're just not the right fit for a particular environment or a particular issue area.” This can lead to disengagement at work. Research suggests that 85% of working professionals are disengaged. → How to get out: The way to get out of disengagement is to find something where you can enable people, work with a team, and become part of an organization or a cause that you believe in to achieve a common purpose, Freehling explained. Too high on leadership can lead to burnout. You're enabling people to achieve a common purpose, but you care so much that you do it in an unsustainable way. You're seeing it as a sprint rather than a marathon, and you're not able to stay in it for the period of time that would be required to really see through a sustained change. → How to get out: The way to get out of burnout is to be more sustainable in how you're leading. Understand where you are and where you want to be For this, Freehling listed several resources, including taking his career design quiz, reading his Career Design Map book, and answering a number of reflection questions, including “How satisfied am I with that?” “In which direction do I want to move?” “What do I fear will hold me back from moving in that direction?” “What do I already do well that I could build on to move in that direction?” During the event, Freehling asked participants to put a pin on where they were currently and where they wanted to go. What it takes to get where you want to be The last step is where the hard work is to be done –- and it involves gaining insight into what you need to do to get to where you want to go. In this reflection question, Freehling encouraged professionals to ask themselves: What changes to my mindsets, behaviors, and habits would make the biggest difference in moving me in that direction? What additional experience, education, and connections would help move me in that direction? Who could I speak with who has successfully taken a similar journey? Am I really ready to commit to moving in that direction starting today? If not, what is holding me back? Ready to stand out from the crowd and get noticed by the recruiters who matter most? Update your Devex profile and start connecting with top global development recruiters now.