“Take Control of Your Desk,” And Other Career Tips for ICs, Managers & Founders

Embark on a journey to master your workspace, elevate your career, and lead with confidence. Whether you're an individual contributor, a manager, or a founder, these tips will empower you to take control and navigate your professional landscape with ease.

Career growth is inherently multi-player

The right combination of folks taking ownership of their career goals, managers that support those ambitions, and a company culture that supports them

• Find the right company and the right manager, and you can take control of your desk to carve out the right role for yourself
• When you reflect back on your job, you don’t think about the emails you write or the slide decks you present, but rather how that work was received and the experience of working with the people around you

When assessing a company, look for these mile markers

Pay attention to the investment cycle

• Keep an eye out for movement in the C-Suite
• Drill down into how the particular role you are eyeing fits into the company’s growth trajectory
• A company’s career page will tell you their product roadmap and where the company is investing moving forward

Questions for candidates to ask in an interview

What initiatives were rolled out that changed the course of the product or the GTM strategy?

• What’s the most common reason people leave here and what’s the company doing to rectify it?
• Why did you promote your last report?
• If you were to bucket my role, how would you break down what I’d spend an average day doing?

Retain your top talent

Set the tone: emphasize early on that you expect your hire to take control of their own desk, and you will support those goals and provide feedback along the way

• Keep them challenged: find out their motivators and point them towards how to uplevel them
• Assign a rotating Devil’s Advocate: challenge the team to think with different frameworks
• Create the culture for your team: create a culture within your smaller team

Tips for CANDIDATES

Know who you are and what motivates and demotivates you.

Skip the buzzwords and lead with authenticity

Don’t use startup cliches

• Stay away from overused phrases like “we’re the next big startup”
• What makes your company unique?
• You don’t have to be the next unicorn to attract top talent

Make space to bring your career motivations into clearer focus

Take a step back and consider the deeper questions of who you are, what you’re looking for, and what’s important to you.

• If you find yourself looking towards the five or ten-year horizon, but your vision is foggy, Iyer suggests chunking this out into three pieces:
• What you’re good at, What you enjoy, and how that correlates to career output
• Informative interviews are an under-utilized tool in your toolbelt

Questions for managers to ask in an interview

Tell me about a time when you achieved success entirely on your own

• What are you working to improve at?
• Describe a time you’ve failed
• Who are you and what’s most important to you
• Which are you?

Don’t just save career development for when you’re a BigCo

Lay the foundation for these future building blocks now

• For very early-stage startups, it may be too early to implement formal manager training, but there are some lightweight ideas for baking career development into your company DNA from the start
• Mentorship or shadowing programs
• Advertising the opportunities that are already available

Invest in folks who can take your career development plan to the next level

Benchmarks to hold yourself to

• Invest in HR – these are the folks who will create the machinery for career development
• Look at the bigger picture – are you investing in senior talent or in people early in their careers?
• Leaders have to strategically think about how to achieve their deliverables while enabling their team to grow and elevate

Put career growth front and center in the interview

Ask about the one, three, five-year future where they see the company growing

• Probe their goals and what they’re striving for
• A lot of folks talk themselves out of being direct about their ambition because they worry it might come off as abrasive

How to Grow Your Career By Aligning the Company’s Needs With Your Own Inspirations

The greatest opportunities for growth are at the intersection of the needs of the business and flexing your metaphorical muscles.

• When presenting a new project or making your case for taking on a new role, always start from the framing of: Why would they say yes to this suggestion? Dangle the carrot.

Hiring managers:

Find folks looking to grow in their career

• Be wary of folks who are defensive when questioned about their resume
• Look for folks who have self-awareness around the story their resume is telling
• Beware of interpersonal issues that arise when you don’t click with a manager

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