Are you protecting your employability or developing your craft?
When I think about professional development, I look at two different needs.
The first is protecting your ability to earn a living. Are there gaps in your professional foundations that could put your current work at risk or prevent you from getting another job?
The second is developing your craft. Are you becoming more knowledgeable and skilled in work that connects with who you are, interests you, and gives you something you want to keep building?
Both matter and we want to work towards a world where the second is making the first a reality.
But sometimes they do require different decisions, and it helps to separate them before deciding where your time should go.
Which skill gaps actually need your attention first?
Start with the foundations expected across the kinds of roles you would realistically pursue.
There may be a competency you need to strengthen to perform your current responsibilities or be considered for your next job. We need to close those gaps even if it is not the most exciting part of your profession. This is far more common early on in our career, but sometimes we can actually move pretty far down the career never having fully stabilized our foundation.
But be honest about whether the gap is actually a barrier.
There is a difference between something an employer needs you to arrive knowing and something they would reasonably expect you to learn after joining. You do not have to master every requirement in every job description before you are employable.
Ask yourself:
- What evidence suggests this skill is essential for the roles I would pursue?
- Would lacking it prevent me from being hired, or could I develop it on the job?
- How much competence do I need to close the gap?
A necessary foundation does not automatically need to become your specialty or something you’ve developed mastery around. Define the level you need so that addressing a gap does not consume all the time you could spend developing a direction you actually want.
If you’re unsure about what the basic foundations are I would look at a bunch of job descriptions in your profession and see what shows up in the majority of them or work with a mentor in your space.
Should my development focus on my current job or my next one?
My view is that career development should keep you ready for a future job. Progress and promotion within your current company can benefit from that work, but I would not make that company the sole destination for everything you learn.
You cannot know how long the current arrangement will last. There could be a layoff, a change in your circumstances, or a point when you need to leave.
If all your development makes you more useful to one employer while leaving you less prepared to find work elsewhere, that is a tradeoff you can’t realistically afford.
This does not mean neglecting your current responsibilities or risking the paycheck you need. Keeping money coming in matters, obviously. It is the number 1 priority for most people. It means being deliberate about the additional time, energy, and sometimes money you put into becoming better at your current job.
I worry about people who commit far beyond what their company needs, only to be left shocked by a layoff and asking what all that sacrifice was for.
One question I use when thinking about career progress is:
Am I proud of the work I am doing, and could I explain why it would matter to a future employer?
That question helps me look beyond whether I am keeping my current boss happy. It brings the focus back to the experience, judgment, and evidence I am building for my career.
How do knowledge, skill, and enjoyment guide the decision?
Once you have identified any necessary foundations, you can look at where to grow your craft.
In earlier articles, I covered mapping your professional competencies, understanding the dimensions and contexts of your profession, and scoring your knowledge, skill, and enjoyment.
Those scores answer different questions:
- Knowledge: How well do I understand this area?
- Skill: How well can I carry the work through?
- Enjoyment: How interested, energized, and engaged am I when doing it?
When developing a craft, enjoyment is the most important of those numbers to me. I look at knowledge and skill in relation to it because their combination helps us decide what to do next.
High knowledge and skill with little enjoyment may point toward a competency trap. High enjoyment with room to develop may point toward a promising next investment.
There are three broad areas I look at.
What should I do with an existing strength?
Your strong craft areas have high knowledge, high skill, and high enjoyment relative to the other areas you assessed.
These are often near the center of your craft already. You understand the work, you can deliver it, and you want to keep doing it.
Continue developing those areas. Refine your approach, learn from your results, and consider how your work might improve in a different context or with a new perspective.
Being strong in something and bringing your full identity into it, doesn’t mean we’re done developing and refining that part of our craft.
And you can also look for what you want to add around that center.
Where should I look for my next growth opportunity?
Emerging craft areas are places where enjoyment is high, but knowledge or skill is still developing.
You may have enough experience to know that you like the work, while recognizing that you need practice, guidance, or a stronger understanding of how to do it well.
These are areas I would consider for a career growth plan.
Look for opportunities to develop them through your current work. Is there a project where you could practice? Could you contribute alongside someone more experienced? Could you take responsibility for a manageable part of the work?
Where possible, use your current role to build your craft and create a body of evidence. You are developing a capability while also building examples you can discuss when a future opportunity comes along.
That is more useful than simply accumulating training without a clear connection to work you want to do.
What if something interests me, but I have never done it?
I call these exploration craft areas.
Your knowledge and skill may be very low. Your interest might be a spark of curiosity, or you might already think you would love the work. Either way, you’re missing the experience to confirm (or reject) that enjoyment.
At this stage, I would usually start by learning about it rather than immediately seeking responsibility for a whole project.
Talk to people who do the work. Read about it. Watch someone explain their process. Learn what the work involves beyond the part that first caught your attention. In your current job, this is a great opportunity to reach out to coworkers and ask to learn from them or even shadow a project.
As you do, notice what happens to your interest. Are you becoming more curious? Do you want to understand more? Can you see a connection with what matters to you?
If that interest grows, the area may become something you want to develop through practice.
It can also go the other way. You might discover that the idea of the work appealed to you more than the work itself.
Your enjoyment score is allowed to change as your understanding improves. You can add things to the center of your craft and you can remove them just as well.
What if my current job does not offer those opportunities?
Some workplaces give you room to explore and develop. Others have limited flexibility. Others have managers that have no idea what career growth even means.
It can still be worth bringing a specific proposal to your manager: the area you want to develop, an appropriate opportunity to practice it, and how that work could help the team.
A manager who struggles to build career growth plans may find a concrete suggestion helpful. It gives them something to respond to instead of leaving the whole plan for them to invent. (To be clear, it’s my position that managers absolutely must take the initiative for your career growth… a viewpoint not shared by many).
That does not guarantee access to the work. If the opportunity is unavailable, you may need to continue learning through conversations, reading, or other manageable exploration while considering where practical experience could come from.
You can also look for your own side projects outside of work to explore that area of interest.
The sequence I would use is to address genuine employment gaps, keep developing the strengths you enjoy, look for practice in emerging areas, and learn more about exploratory interests before making a larger commitment.
You do not need to develop every part of your profession equally. You need a thoughtful next investment that protects your ability to work and moves your craft toward something you want to keep doing.
