Career Pathways

“I think the ability to understand what's expected in a role, how to promote, how to internally transfer, all of those things, and then being able to use that as a foundation for career conversations, pay conversations, e...”

“never shy away from taking on something that you didn't have any experience on because you will learn from it. You will get better at it and you can offer the organization something or a new organization.”

“I think I would recommend both of those things, you know, work somewhere where they know what good looks like and you can learn from people and also work somewhere without a, without a safety net. Where you have to figur...”

“Don't just stay put and stick it out, like actively look for those opportunities to stretch yourself.”

“I got my start actually in HR shortly after I graduated college with United Airlines as an Really developed a love of working with frontline folks in that role.”

“The organic nature of that relationship is what makes it special.”

“What good looks like for an early career compensation specialist versus an executive talent consultant role, which is what we call the HR business role at US Bank, that will look very different.”

“I did not take the normal trajectory to get into HR. I actually taught for 5 years... I didn't even know it was a career path.”

“make it known that you have ideas, fresh ones and innovations and disruptive ones, and make that company go. And I think HR people need to have the insight that they'll be recognized for those types of things, and that a...”

“This idea that you're not going to go straight up a ladder, and maybe you don't even want to.”

“We want you to be here as long as it's a good time for you, as long as it's a good time for us and everybody's learning. But we also recognize there comes a point where your desire for progression in your career may outp...”

“I do think just like streaming platforms like Tubi, it's streaming and the way we consume media has transformed how people just review and download and digest content... a workforce is starting to feel like it's shifting...”

“Peace Corps really trained me and gave me the opportunity to learn on an experiential basis.”

“I believe there was this mindset of you had to come in and just grind your way through the organization to get to this opportunity space. So I think what we need to do is we need to democratize, bring learning to everyon...”

“I'm a big believer on skill is the commodity of the future within our workforce, and it shouldn't be held at a certain group or a certain— it should be democratized and available to all who want to really grow their skil...”

“I always say I'm the unicorn in HR in that I knew from the very beginning going into undergrad that I wanted to have a career in HR.”

“I fundamentally don't believe that in HR. I believe any HR leader who has a good business, has good business acumen, who has a growth mindset, who wants to learn and understand how businesses work, and has the deep exper...”

“You don't have to be the smartest person in the room. You need to be the smartest person to go ask the smartest person for help.”

“L&D can't exist or should never exist in a vacuum. It must be tied to career growth, business objectives.”

“I thought, how do I get to the other side where I can help prevent maybe some of the catastrophes that I was helping the lawyers defend?”

“The risk is you go to a bigger company, you're a minnow in the ocean versus a king salmon in a small creek.”

“There's one concept which I hold very dear to my heart, and I call that PIE, which is performance, image, and exposure. Your performance, of course, speaks for you and the results you're achieving, but image and exposure...”

“I had to literally prove my capabilities working in a business unit that I didn't know... leaning into a concept of you have to go to grow, I kind of, that's one of my mantras.”

“There is no defined path to success. What I found is that sometimes taking the hard opportunity or the one that was tougher gave me an advantage because it gave me the credibility to succeed, but it also helped in my dev...”

“The owner of our company, Tom Cook started out frying taco shells at a Taco Bell. Now he owns 282 of them, you know, so it's something our brand president started out in as a restaurant manager. We've got directors of op...”

“I know that there's this desire to reward folks with a big title. When it comes to the people team and trying to roll out something like this, it can be a real challenge. However, this does give a pathway to having a sol...”

“I have to be not necessarily a jack of all trades, but interested in all trades, understanding. And I know HR folks always get told, yeah, you have to know the business. So definitely from that perspective, but just in g...”

“But the benefit and beauty of that is we were able to teach them the way we wanted it done without any preconceived ideas of how medical billing should be done.”

“We have to understand that people are not fixed assets. They really are this evolving potential.”

“The first 10 to 15 years is really in total rewards, and then I spin out from there. Instead of going through my CV, let me just share maybe a few of my milestones of what lessons I've learned through my career.”

“If you're jobs and you think that you have job security and you only wanna do HR, that's good and fine. But if you're looking to expand and wanna do something else, this is the opportunity and it is very much what we cal...”

“I would just say for all of those that are listening, just get involved, right? I think for me, it's all about leaning in. It's about being present, right? So it's not just about showing up, but it's about leaning into w...”

“At this point today, we have 90% of all of our roles in the company covered globally with a profile. And when you think about that, that creates this greenfield to begin to putting together the idea of performance, devel...”

“I always joke that I moved 4 times in 4 years with GE. I had various roles, specialists, generalists, all part of the healthcare business, but really got some broad exposure to HR and then moved from GE to Biogen...”

“I have found where leaders were stepping away from having career discussions with their employees and allowing an HR person or a compensation person or insert someone else here to have a career discussion. And as a leade...”

“The point is to always be developing yourself and trying to improve your skillset so that you're always marketable and you're always at the best edge of your field.”

“employees want to be more in the driver's seat of their career, right? And so this idea that an employer is making the decision is sort of a very old-fashioned way of career management.”

“I'm one of the, the lone voices out here that says I don't believe in work-life balance. I believe in choices, right?”

“I often tell those early professionals, like, 'cause I love doing that myself, like, you'll learn a lot, you'll grow a lot, you'll see the best in class, and how it's done. And then once you've kind of absorbed that and...”

“The most important thing about L&D at Stack and how it's been really lucky for me is a core value of our company is learn, share, and grow.”

“I was able to rise from a GS-4 to a GS-14 where I was making over 6 figures in 7 years, and that is almost unheard of in the federal government. But it's because I took the time to read. I was responsive to my customers.”

“movement, movement, movement. And what I encourage people to do is be open to moves, be open to taking risks. That's really how you learn.”

“By the time they had been in a tech field for 5 years, they were making $95,000 a year. This is life-changing for that human, their family, and even the community around them.”

“At the end of the day, though, there is a shared accountability. An employee cannot look at development and say, it's all of company's responsibility.”

“I think my biggest advice is take initiative, own what you're doing. It's a two-way street.”

“just put your hand up for things, even if it seems non-conventional, or even if it seems like something that you don't have any business being involved in, because you can learn, you can develop new skill sets”

“it's all about the mindset. There's not enough preparation you can do in terms of learning about the place or the thing... For me, it was always working on building the confidence in myself that I could figure anything t...”

“I have really tried to define my career by having time in multiple different industries.”

“I would tell people to hold onto that and to look for that in what they're doing. Look at where you're working, who you're working with. I think we're in such a dynamic economy right now, you could look and say, these ar...”

“To me, internal mobility makes sense because you've already invested time resources and development in this workforce, why would you not promote them? Why do you want to go to the street automatically rather than taking...”

“mentorship and advocacy is very important for your career. And I have learned that don't be afraid to ask for help.”

“I work in HR because I fulfilled— I help them fulfill their superpower. Sometimes, it's in the company. Sometimes, it's not.”

“When you're young in your career, don't, don't try to go deep in a particular area. Go broad. You don't want to go deep when you're 24 years old, and when you're 35, you wake up and say, you know what? I hate what I do a...”

“I always like to tell people that I had no intention of starting in HR, but I started more in the online sales and operations space at early Facebook as one of the first 800 employees there.”

“all the things I love doing, that's actually HR. That led me into my first formal role and joining GitHub in 2013 and helping to build out the HR function there...”

“So I'd say be curious, push yourself outside of your comfort zone, Raise your hand to do new and different things. And to cap it all off, in terms of learning, like, learning is a lifelong journey, and every day you have...”

“Don't wait for someone to hand you the perfect opportunity. Build your skills. Create value where you are and surround yourself with people who challenge and support you. And if you are in a leadership role, I would say...”

“If you are not fascinated by the way humans think, act, feel, you are going to find the subject matter of this work pretty depressing.”

“When you add a prerogative to make decisions based on skill, as opposed to personal affinity or which college somebody went to or the pedigree of the brands they've worked at, it creates a lot more fairness and gives fol...”

“I promise that if you're here a year, and you like it, you can stay. And if you're here a year and you absolutely hate it, I will put you back in at least as good of a place or better to where you were before.”

“Last year we promoted 40% of our workforce and good for us, they all happen to be women and also happen to be in women leadership roles up to and including the executive leadership team as well.”

“Very quickly discovered that I love people more so than technology at that time.”

“I think that it's really important for us to realize that our own professional development is our own responsibility. You can't wait for your leaders or your company to create opportunities for you. You need to find them...”

“Be open to the possibilities. Because when I first— someone first mentioned HR, I thought, why would I want to do that? And then I realized all those years ago how much HR was changing and how much it really allowed me t...”

“your story is not your own. So you really need to be able to share that.”

“One of the things that I learned in my first year of teaching is that no one wants to be a failure... And when I think about learning and development, my approach really has been, okay, what can I do for this group of in...”

“And I would just encourage everyone to make sure that you are challenged every day and you show up, um, as, as your best to demonstrate what you're capable of and have an idea of where it is that you want to end in your...”

“in order to truly be happy in our careers, it's really important that we think through what is it that would actually fill our professional cup in our careers.”

“Well, yeah, mine hasn't necessarily been the straight and narrow, if you will. It's been ups and downs, not really the old way or the usual way, I would say, through HR journey.”

“I am very, very, I'm a very strong proponent of continuous and professional growth, right? So learning and development. And one of the things that I stress to my leaders... is we want to help our team grow the best way p...”

“No, start it now. Start it from the beginning because I find that it allows you to be much more fiscally responsible in HR when you build those levels because A, you're very clear on these are the roles that we have, the...”

“One of the questions I ask a lot is, what do you really like doing and what do you really not like doing? Very simplistically, I can make small adjustments in my, you know, team of 20-ish people in HR.”

“I personally disagree. I don't want anybody else to be in charge of, you know, my destiny. So I think it's each one of us needs to be encouraged to figure out and define what does growth look like?”

“And he said, come work for me. I'll train you everything I know. And what I didn't know was he was planning to retire. The next year, but his name is Larry and he was true to his word. He brought me on, he sent me throug...”

“Did you Did you find HR or did HR find you? And I was definitely in the latter camp.”

“My career journey may be a little bit unique in its, in its, what seems like windy path to getting to be G2's Chief People Officer for the last 4 years.”

“I told her that I really admired her business acumen... and thought that she could be a commercial leader someday and not just an HR leader.”

“one data point that is striking this year is the challenging notion of ambition that Gen Zs in particular have. And one of the headlines from this year's report is that only 6% of those surveyed aspire to leadership role...”

“He said, Malvika, you need to be a student of the business. And so everyone, every HR professional obviously needs to know their domain, but also get bilingual. Learn technology, learn the business, and you will be a muc...”

“Ask to be invited into meetings that typically you wouldn't find make sense for your department, but see what you can take from that in order to influence your role, your department, and overall the business at the end o...”

“One of the major obstacles that CHROs face is not being seen as having business acumen.”

“You own 51% of your career, you're the majority shareholder, which means that you are responsible for your own career growth, your own development. It's really important to take the driver's seat, to understand where you...”

“I would describe my career journey as steady, varied, exciting, and meaningful. So what I sought in every position I've had, whether in human resources or working in various functions, has been I've really approached my...”

“I knew I was going into HR at the young age of 18. So when I went to undergrad, I majored in business and HR and It's worked out well for me.”

“I will say what I always share with people is the reason my career grew at the trajectory it did in HR is because I never said no to anything.”

“Don't be afraid to try new things and different things. Diversify your experience.”

“Giving that on-the-job experience where you're doing something that may not be a traditional HR role is a huge way... to totally expanded their view of what HR could do and what our business was.”

“I said through faith and excitement, I wanna pour into others and use my work as a catalyst to impact as many people as I can in a positive way. And by excitement, one of the things I've learned is that when you're passi...”

“What specific competencies do you believe HR professionals need to develop early in their careers to effectively transition from being a seat taker to a table setter?”

“every week, every manager is expected to spend 30 minutes with every member of their team. And part of that dialogue is also meant to be about career development opportunity.”

“just get as close to the business as possible. You know, ask, listen, learn, get in the field, schedule introductory meetings with leaders that you support.”

“I knew that when I was changing jobs last that I wanted to go to a must-have product... I pitched myself to a job that didn't exist in a company that I aspire to work for. And I remember just waiting for a long period of...”

“you know more than you think you know, and you were hired for a reason. So, even now, I still get imposter syndrome when I'm in rooms.”

“I had always thought of myself as an attorney, and it wasn't even so much that other people couldn't see me differently. It was more like, how do I really hone in on what gets me up in the morning? Why did I go to school...”

“So if I think about my career, it's really been shaped by curiosity, continuously learning, and saying yes to things, even if I didn't know where they were gonna take me.”

“don't let the role or the title of the role define you because I didn't even know what that role was. I moved into it 6 months later. I had a role as a compensation analyst, and from there my career went off.”

“If you think that you have all the answers to all the questions, you would be mistaken. And walking into an industry such as ours, such as the restaurant industry, is a very dynamic, fast-moving, industry. And if you don...”

“You don't need to be at the top to create your success and overcome actually the challenges.”

“Someone asked me one day if I wanted to work in personnel. I was working in a claims department and they said,, you know, do you wanna get outta here? And I said, yes, I don't know what personnel is, but sure.”

“It's not about how many people do you know on LinkedIn? In fact, I refuse many or most on LinkedIn that are cold, that they just send a note, I want to be part of your network. And there's no value in that for them or fo...”

“One of my biggest regrets was not having a job that translated into the civilian world. And when I got out, I worked a ton of odd jobs.”