How do you assess your skills and competencies for career pathing and mobility?

I slightly disagree with the article's suggestion that self-assessment should be entirely self-initiated. While self-motivation is crucial, organizations can also play a proactive role by regularly encouraging employees to assess their skills and offering resources and guidance for improvement.

Start by defining the competencies and skills that are essential for success in each role or career path within your organization. These may include technical skills, functional knowledge, leadership capabilities, and interpersonal skills. Next, assess your current workforce to identify gaps and areas of strength in these competencies and skills. Use this information to develop training and development programs that support career growth and mobility for employees. Finally, establish clear career paths and mobility opportunities that align with your organization's strategic goals and provide employees with a clear understanding of the competencies and skills required to advance in their careers.

Evaluating your skill and competency levels requires a self-reflective and objective approach. Start by identifying the skills and competencies that are essential for success in your current role or the role you aspire to. Next, assess your proficiency level in each of these skills using a combination of self-assessment, feedback from colleagues and supervisors, and objective performance metrics. Identify areas of strength and opportunities for improvement and develop a personalized learning and development plan to enhance your skills and competencies.

While self-analysis is important in evaluating your skills, I would recommend bringing in a trusted advisor to help you. This needs to be someone who is very familiar with you in your professional environment who can help you truly evaluate how you are perceived. Perception is reality. Gain insights from others about how you are perceived in addition to actual skills and technical knowledge. In the end, how you "stand out" will determine your mobility more than any certifications or expertise.

Ultimately, closing skill gaps should be for some purpose in your desired career journey. Since career journeys are a story, you need to think about it this way. Research and understand your desired destination. What are you working toward and what are the obstacles currently standing in your way? Talk to people in those roles. What do they do regularly that you currently don’t know how to do? What things will you need to overcome those obstacles and how will you describe mastering those obstacles has adequately prepare you for your desired destination? At the end of the day, even if you close the gaps, you’re still going to have to convince someone you’re capable and stories are a powerful way to do it, so start building your story.

Start by identifying the skills and competencies that are essential for success in your current or desired role, and compare them to your existing skill set. Use a combination of self-assessment, feedback from colleagues and supervisors, and objective performance metrics to identify areas of strength and opportunity. Next, prioritize your skill and competency gaps based on their impact on your current or desired role and your organization's strategic goals. Develop a personalized learning and development plan that includes specific and measurable goals, timelines, and resources to help you bridge these gaps.

When it comes to evaluating one's skills and competencies for career pathing and mobility, a valuable insight from this article is the significance of holistic self-assessment. Recognizing that an accurate understanding of not just technical skills, but also soft skills and leadership qualities, is essential resonates deeply. By encouraging employees to take a comprehensive view of their abilities, organizations can better align career aspirations with professional development, ensuring a well-rounded skill set for future roles.

Career lattices, or agile career paths, are flexible career plans that support talent development, upskilling and recognition in multiple directions. Such plans provide a proactive approach that gives employees a voice in their career growth and opportunities. Agile career paths acknowledge that ideas, skill development and recognition might flow in different directions, allowing information to flow where it is needed. Adopt a framework that enables a more fluid type of mobility, such as agile career paths. Up and down should be replaced with a more mobile model. Embracing this concept helps employees recognize that they have options for mobility rather than the old idea of just an up or down move on the corporate ladder.