Why do a career review?

When we hear "review," we always think "ending," but don't wait for retirement age to look back on your professional experiences and take stock of those years.

It's very hard to know whether you've gained the right career momentum. You went to school, you had a professional goal, you started your career, and then? You can take stock at several stages of your professional life.

#What is a career review?

A professional career is made of stages and evolution. The career review is a moment when you stop, when you ask yourself questions, and when you examine your career path, reassess your goals, your priorities, your values, and your ideals.

#Why do a career review?

The goal is to improve your self-knowledge, to evolve, to understand certain dissatisfactions you have at work, and even a certain way of taking risks in your career.

Relative to your skills and what you're looking for in a professional experience, a career review will help you build the right positioning strategy in terms of salary, type of company and project, type of team you want to join, the underlying problem the project is solving, and the challenges you want to take on.

#When and how to do a career review?

When to take stock to see where you stand professionally: are you happy at your company, are you happy with your choices, or do you want to make the same career choices in the future as those you've already made?

The right time to take stock is notably during a phase change in your professional life.

Several phases in a career:

Establishing the foundations of our career

Learning and ramping up skills

Contributing at your full potential

Passing on your knowledge

Our view of a career evolves with the years and with experience. So you should sit down and take stock about every 5 years to look back on the previous phase. Why? Because our priorities and career goals change.

You have to sit down to head in the right direction, even if you're not changing jobs.

Just because you don't change jobs doesn't mean your job doesn't change!

And especially in tech, which evolves very fast! We experience role changes, new teams, new technical challenges and responsibilities, new tools and technologies…

So make a list of your skills and your strengths and ask yourself whether they've been used the way they should in your experiences. Ask yourself whether you're fulfilled and whether you're growing those skills within your job.

Also make a list of your values and your professional ambitions. Ask yourself whether the career choices you've made match those values.

A few questions to ask yourself:

What skills have I managed to develop in my jobs?

What did I enjoy or dislike?

What do I really want to find in my next experiences?

Could I grow within my current company?

What motivates me at work?

Then look for the answers to these questions! Do you need training to reach those goals? Do you need to change companies, or should you head toward a role with more responsibilities?