How often do you rely on the job titles listed on resumes to propel your professional development trajectory? These job titles do not necessarily speak for themselves.
First, job titles indicate (or at least should) a steady progression on increased responsibility and functional performance. However, this progression is not necessarily a clear indicator of what you really bring to client and stakeholder tables. Then again, resumes which showcase a non-linear professional pathway can be misinterpreted by recruiters as an indication of indecision rather than purposeful professional commitment.
How does your current professional development strategy fit into this continuum?
Do your job titles indicate how well you play with others, when wrestling with big hairy issues? Really?
During my Storytelling for STEM Professionals and Left Brain Thinkers speaking programs, attendees rate themselves on how well they play with others. Then, we take a look at just who those “others” are. More often than not, the children they are playing with reside within their departmental discipline. They know who each other “is” and the meaning of what each other “does.”
However, the majority of program attendees tell me that each day, their professional lives intersect with stakeholders with job titles outside of their core STEM and left brain professional disciplines. And, that these “other,” non-technical stakeholders have no real grasp of what a left brain thinker “does.”
All these “other stakeholders” recall is a stereotype. This stereotype represents their aggregated employee experiences working with STEM professionals and other left brain thinkers.
Spoiler alert here. These aggregated non-technical stakeholder experiences often are neither constructive nor pleasant. However, these experiences are, indeed, memorable.
When your job title collides with stakeholder and customer stereotyping, your professional trajectory can be impeded.
Isn’t it time to take professional development steps which move you beyond the perceived, and often stereotyped, value of job titles, certifications, pay grade and level of education?
So that you can move forward? And take your seat at the leadership table?
Then, take the next steps.
- Planning your next corporate or association meeting? Engage me to present one of my Storytelling for STEM Professionals and Left Brain Thinkers speaking programs.
- Download my new checklist and worksheet: Six Professional Development Targets to Hit each Month.
- Subscribe to my blog. Share your email address in the red box in the right column of this blog. Never miss another insightful post.
Babette Ten Haken ‘s One Millimeter Mindset™ Storytelling for STEM Professionals and Left Brain Thinkers speaking programs are created for leaders and managers of organizations and associations, like yours, who want to leverage a stronger human capital strategy to catalyze stakeholder success and customer retention. She is a member of SME, ASQ, SHRM and the National Speakers Association. Her playbook of communication hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Babette’s speaker profile is on the espeakers platform.
Image source: iStock
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