How Can We Keep Building Our Careers When It’s Not About the Next Job Title?

Note: This is the first post in a three-part series.

Maybe it’s just something about this time of year.

Goal setting, or some kind of personal or organizational planning for the next year seems to be taking center stage these days, and I’ve noticed a bit of a theme cropping up in conversations:

How can I keep building my career when it’s not necessarily about the next job title?

This question feels deeply relatable, especially for those people who aren’t on a linear career ladder nor have desires to be gunning for the top nor be the ‘next big thing’ professionally.?

Not everyone is climbing, in this traditional sense -- and that’s okay.

But it still leaves an important question to answer: What does growth look like if it’s not a title change?

Knowing how we can continue to keep growing our careers cuts to the core of what many of us want in our professional lives, and it involves?these three things:

• Choice: What kind of work feels fulfilling for me?
• Impact: How do I want to contribute to my team, my company, my industry?
• Engagement: What sparks my curiosity and keeps me motivated?

Why Does This Matter?

We spend a ton of time working. And let’s be honest: it’s not just for the paycheck or the occasional pat on the back. Those things are fine, but they don’t necessarily make you excited to show up with your best energy in the long run.

When we get intentional about growth—beyond chasing titles—it allows us to align with what truly drives us. This kind of alignment isn’t just nice to have. It’s useful. It keeps you sharp, relevant, and evolving with the world around you.

So, how do we keep building? Especially when the answer isn’t as simple as completing another training program or earning a certification.?

Redefine “Opportunities”

The first step is to expand your idea of what opportunities even are.

They’re not always promotions. Sometimes, they’re experiences that deepen or stretch the skills you already have.

A recent example with a client comes to mind:

A product manager I know was feeling stuck. He loved collaborating with stakeholders, balancing customer needs, and shaping products, but when people talked about his “next step,” it usually involved managing people. That wasn’t what he wanted.

We explored his experiences in his role -- the parts he liked, didn't like, along with the aspects of his job that wish he had more of. As a product owner, he played a key role in defining priorities of the tasks his team were working, ultimately influencing the roll out of features as he balanced customer needs with the development team's interests. He realized he was most energized when he got to contribute to the early design process—brainstorming, prototyping, and problem-solving alongside the design team. Those activities, however, were things he was around but had limited hands-on experience with, but he wanted to be more directly involved.

As far as aligning with this interest area, my client said he wanted to attend a specific design-thinking conference in the next year as a development opportunity.? Additionally, he started to point out instances where he could flex this creative approach today – and in more directly on his existing projects and identified the places where he could volunteer to be more hands-on with the work in this area.?

These weren’t promotions or even new roles.

But my client expanded his previous idea of a growth opportunity, identifying it as a chance to play more of an active role in the hands-on work through projects in his day to day and also look for a specific industry professional event where he could deepen his knowledge and contacts in the field.

Growth doesn’t always mean climbing—it can mean digging deeper into the parts of your job that you love and that continue to sharpen your industry knowledge and relevance in skillset.

Your Turn

Part 2 of this series is coming soon, but in the meantime, I’d love to hear from you.

What’s helped you keep growing in your career, especially when it wasn’t about a new title?Drop your thoughts below—I'd love to know!

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