⚠️ Career growth starts the moment you enter the company, not after your first year. It’s crucial to establish your career goals early and make them a regular topic of discussion with your manager. ⚠️‍

❶ Initial Discussions: ⚡️ During your job interviews and early interactions, discuss potential growth paths with your recruiter or manager. Understand what opportunities exist for advancement and what expectations you need to meet. Make sure to set up your own expectations as well and communicate them early on. 🗯️

❷ Regular Check-ins: 📆 Especially if this is not a regular topic in your 1:1 meetings, schedule regular meetings with your manager to discuss your progress and career aspirations. Make sure to adress this early on and have your manager commit to a regular check in and guidance on what you need to do to achieve X. 📌 Remember your goals should be aligned with company objectives.

❸ Mentoring: 👀 Seek mentorship within the company. (❌ note: it should not be your manager) This can provide you with valuable insights and increase your visibility among higher management. But of course you can also have a mentor outside the company and regularly exchange and seek advice.

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Your work should not only be aesthetically pleasing but also strategically impactful. Focus on projects that enhance the company's goals and demonstrate your understanding of business needs.‍

❶ Producing Impactful Work: 💪 One of the key advice is that your work should not only be aesthetically pleasing but also strategically impactful. Focus on projects that enhance the company's goals and demonstrate your understanding of business needs. ✨

‍❷ Project Leadership: 💥 Look for opportunities to lead projects or initiatives. This not only showcases your leadership skills but also your commitment to the company’s goals.

‍❸ Business Impact: 🌟 When taking on projects, consider how your design solutions can solve business problems or improve processes. This approach shows that you're a designer who thinks beyond aesthetics.

❹ Visibility: 👀 One thing we have learnt, is how important it is to show visibility. Ensure that your impactful work is visible to key stakeholders. This might involve presenting your projects in meetings or sharing success stories in internal newsletters or presenting at events. 👉 Don't hide if you want to grow in your career.

❺ Cross-Departmental Collaboration: 💢 If you are in a larger company, engaging with other departments can be a big win. Often departments work in silos, and you can bridge the gap, learn a new skill or initiate a cross-collaboration. This is another great growth opportunity.

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Strong relationships within your company can open doors to new opportunities and provide critical insights into how to improve your work.

❶ Networking: 🔗 Actively connect with colleagues from different departments. Understand their challenges and explore how your skills can help address these issues.

❷ Feedback: ✏️Regular feedback is crucial for growth. Seek out feedback not only from your manager but also from peers and other department heads.

❸ Opportunity Mapping: 🔍 Constantly analyze your current role and department for growth opportunities. But keep your eyes open. If you are working in bigger corportations other opportunities might arise in different departments too.💥 Make sure to keep your networking alive, regularly check if there are other opportunities from other companies too.

❸ Ask for a raise: 💰 If you don't have a scheduled compensation call each year and you have a feeling you are overdue for a raise: Be vocal! Set up a meeting with you manager to adress this and be prepared. 👉 Summarize your key contributions, responsibilities and outlooks while you ask for more money. You should undermine why you deserve it. In best case if you have followed all steps in previous sections, this forced discussion would not be necessary.

❹ Change roles / companies: ❌❌❌ Often times if you feel no matter how much effort you put in to grow some companies do simply not want you to grow, give you a raise or updating your title. The truth is that it is often times best to change companies or roles if that is the case.
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