Are You Experienced?

You’ve been in your field for five years. You know the systems, understand the personalities, and can spot a problem before everyone else realizes there is one. People come to you because you get stuff done. That sounds like experience, right? But is it five years of growth or is it the same year repeated five times? Repetition can make you faster and feel more confident. It can help you build good judgment and become a trusted subject matter expert. At the same time, if your work isn’t challenging you, then you may be very busy while your career stands still.

Competent vs Comfortable

Competence is valuable. It’s also comfortable. Why could that be a problem? You meet your deadlines. Your manager rarely needs to check your work. Coworkers rely on you to solve familiar problems. You can complete tasks that once took hours in a fraction of the time.

Once you master a task, you use fewer brain cells to complete it. That makes your day easier, but it also means the work may no longer be building your skills. You are producing more because you know the routine, not because you’re learning something new. You need to ensure being good at your current job helps you prepare for your next one.

More Work Does Not Equal More Experience

Does your workload keep growing, but your abilities don’t? For example, let’s say you prepare six reports every month. Then your manager adds six more. You are now responsible for twice as much work, but you are still using the same skills. That is more volume, not necessarily more development.

Now let’s say you learn how to automate part of the reporting process, identify patterns in the data, and present recommendations to senior leaders. The original task has become a development opportunity because it requires new abilities. More responsibility makes you grow. More repetition makes you tired. Are you being stretched, or are you being weighed down?

Some Warning Signs

Being trusted for a strength is useful. Maybe you are the spreadsheet person, the meeting rescuer, or the calm one who fixes every last-minute crisis. It can turn into a trap when people keep giving you work you have already mastered. Here are a few clues:

• Your work rarely makes you uncomfortable.
• You already know how to handle nearly every assignment.
• You cannot remember the last time you needed to learn something before moving forward.
• You are known for one thing.
• Your résumé has stopped changing.
• Your job title may be different, but your accomplishments sound almost identical to the ones you listed two years ago.
• You cannot name a skill you developed recently.

Ask yourself, “What can I do today that I could not do one year ago?” You don’t necessarily need to name a certification, but there should be an answer. Have you learned to manage conflict? Influence leaders? Mentor a colleague? Make decisions with incomplete information?

Three Types of Experience

It can be useful to separate experience into three categories.

Repeated experience is performing the same work under similar conditions. You need this to build mastery.

Expanded experience is doing familiar work with greater complexity, visibility, or responsibility.

Developmental experience is building a capability you can use in future roles.

For examples: Creating the same monthly presentation is repeated experience. Presenting it to executives is expanded experience. Learning how to turn the information into a recommendation that changes a business decision is developmental experience.

Stretch the Work You Already Have

You can build all these types of experience today. Start by adding one stretch element to familiar work. For example, lead the meeting instead of preparing the notes. Present the recommendation instead of only gathering the information. Train a coworker instead of remaining the only person who knows the process. Ask to participate in planning instead of waiting for someone to hand you the final assignment. 

You can also request experience. In your next 1:1 with your manager, instead of telling them you want to improve your leadership skills, you could request to build experience by leading a cross-functional project. Find out if there Is an upcoming initiative where you could own part of the work. Even if there isn’t one right away, now your manager knows to think of you when assigning the next one. A course can teach you concepts. You need a real assignment to prove you can apply them.

Audit Your Experience

Review your projects and calendar from the last six months. Label each major activity as repetition, expansion, or development. If most of your work falls into the repetition category, do not panic. Treat that information as a prompt.

Choose one skill you want to strengthen and look for a practical way to use it. Volunteer to facilitate a discussion, mentor a new employee, improve a process, learn a new tool, or present your work to a different audience.

Aim for one meaningful stretch experience each quarter. Four new experiences a year can change the direction of your career especially when they build on each other. 

Your experience should compound. Each year should add better judgment, broader skills, stronger relationships, and/or the ability to solve more complex problems. 

What type of experience has helped you build your career in the past year? Please share in the comments.