Before you look outward, look inward to understand your own goals, passions, skills, and interests. Here are some ideas we’ll explore:

• How can we honestly assess our skills, interests, and passions….and how they can connect to meaningful careers?
• What are some of the systems or psychologies that can get in the way of building a career path?
• Where do you see yourself five years from now? This FM will help you get specific.

Understanding your field—the entirety of HR—is a critical step to understanding where and how you want to move through it. Ideas we’ll look at:

• Map your field: look across HR and understand the matrix that underpins it. See how people move through careers, how you might move through a similar one, or make up your own way.
• Learn your field: learn from experience, seek out mentors, take formal training/certifications, network, and look for unexpected opportunities.

The next piece of the career-building puzzle is to get a deep understanding of the business you’re in: what is the core business, how does it make money, and who are the customers? Other ideas explored here include:

• Build business acumen and a deep understanding of what your company actually does.
• Determine how your role fits into the strategic vision of your business.
• Get specific with questions to ask about your company’s product/service, competitors, profit/revenue.

As individuals, we fit into a field that is part of a business, which is organized under the auspices of an organization. Building a career within an organization means we need to understand how that ecosystem functions. What is the structure of the organization? How does your organization measure individual success? What do you need to know to advance in your career? Other ideas we’ll explore:

• Does your organization’s HR function treat itself as it treats employees in other functions in terms of growth, or are there differences that an HR employee should know about?
• What questions do you need to answer when non-HR employees ask about your organization's structure, hierarchy, and performance model?

Understanding all of these elements of career development is great…but now how do you actually move forward? We’ll look at the absolutely essential role that networks of all kinds play in building a career. We’ll ask questions like:

• How do you build relationships inside and outside your organization?
• What are networks of influence?
• Strategic communications to build relationships: ask for advice, then ask for a favor.
• Types of people to have in your network: allies, peers, sponsors, and mentors
• How our behaviors and actions influence our networks

Doing good work is the bedrock of any career development plan. Assessing, building, and tracking our skill development, then, is critical to growth. But what do skills really mean in this day and age of a constantly evolving HR? How can we develop the “right” skills, both aligning to our interests and what organizations need from us? We’ll dive into:

• The T-shaped model of skills
• Learning and growth: how to seek feedback from your manager and colleagues
• How to reflect on the particular skills and assets you bring, as well as your areas for improvement?
• Key tips and tricks for tracking skill development, including keeping a career journal

This final Field Manual is all about building a unique, individualized career plan. It will focus almost entirely on actions and challenges, and you’ll walk away with a plan that can evolve and grow with you throughout your career.