Welcome to episode 45 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we discuss how to prepare for a career conversation with your manager.
Original Recording Date: 06-29-2019
Topic – Preparing for a Career Conversation with Your Manager
1:03 – The Genesis of This Idea

* We touched on the idea of a career 1-1 with your manager in Episode 12.
* Nick recently needed to prepare for this type of conversation and thought he and John should share the methodology.

2:48 – If You’re not Having Career Conversations…

* Not everyone has a regular career check-in with their manager. Some people may not even have regular 1-1 meetings.
* Why not?

* Is this a cultural aspect of the organization you’re in within the company or the company itself?
* Is it the size of the company or related to your manager having too many direct reports?
* Is your manager ineffective, or is it possible that he / she has an ineffective manager?
* Make a guess as to why this may not be happening for you.

* Can you start?

* Are there any barriers? Do you have a good relationship with your manager?

* Ask to have career added to the agenda of normal 1-1s as a starting point. If that goes well, you can branch out to asking for dedicated career discussions.

* What if there are barriers?

* Aside from making the ask feeling awkward, you may be butting up against a cultural norm that does not support career conversations.
* If you are not comfortable enough with your manager to ask the question, it may indicate an issue between you and your manager (something to explore and figure out).
* If you cannot ask, knowing why is at least helpful.

* If it’s not ok to have these conversations, can you accept it?

* You may not need to have these specifically with your manager. Perhaps outside peers and mentors would be a better option.
* Is this something you actually need, is it a priority, and is this the right organization / department for you (might not be that the company is not right)?

* John asked about the aspects of career conversations before taking his current job. Be sure to ask what career conversations / career progression looks like within the company during the interview process if this is important to you.
* If changes occur within the company / organization and career conversations no longer happen, maybe it is time to make a change (job or company).

* Are you interested in stimulating positive organizational change?

* This takes time, effort, and political capital to do.

* Get advice from others for help (inside or outside the company). Not everything that happens is a reason to change jobs.

12:02 – Preparing to Have the Conversation

* Think about where you want to be in the next 2 – 5 years.

* Nick didn’t think much about this after landing his current job, while John had thought about it during the interview process.
* It requires dedicated brainstorming time outside of the normal daily / weekly set of tasks.