Music. Welcome to the L&D Career Club podcast, where purpose-driven people come to start and grow the L&D career of their dreams. I'm Sarah Kinistra, an L&D career, business, and executive coach, and I'm here to take you on a weekly journey to create a seamless, energizing, and engaging L&D career blueprint so you can live a life of fulfillment, inspiration, and freedom.
If you're here to find your first L&D role, move up the L&D ladder, or land that high-level L&D role you've been dreaming of, welcome to the club. Music. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the L&D Career Club Podcast. I am so happy that you're here. Took a week off last week after my birthday to just get re-caught up on life. So thank you so much to everyone who joined the birthday special that I did.
So great to see. So many of you hopping on the masterclass bundle, the course bundle, one-on-one coaching, so many fun things. And as always, this episode is brought to you by the L&D Career Club. So if you are looking for the step-by-step strategy to find, land, and thrive in your new L&D role, and you want to have a community of purpose-driven people in your corner, please come and join us inside the L&D Career Club. We have three tiers of membership starting at only $19 a month.
And just last week alone, we celebrated seven of our members landing first, second, and and final round interviews, as well as people starting and landing their brand new roles. So if you are ready to join us, head on over to theovernighttrainer.com slash LDCC for more information. I will drop that link in the show notes as well. And today I want to dive into a question I actually got via email.
And usually when I get a question via email, I typically have another podcast episode queued up that I can send over to answer it. But I realized that I haven't really talked a lot about the idea of lateral moves here on the podcast and what that means in terms of your L&D career. And so this question came into my inbox and I thought it would make a good, I always say short and sweet, who knows how short and sweet it'll actually be, but a good podcast episode.
Even this person thought it could create a good podcast episode. So I want to read their email to you and then talk through what my immediate response was, what my more thoughtful response is. And I know a lot of people are feeling this exact same way, especially, I know I might be calling it a down market because it is and it isn't in so many ways. And I'm seeing, y'all, I mean, just thousands and thousands of new jobs in the L&D space being posted daily.
I look every day, multiple times a day, and what I see popping up is the most unique, interesting. Careers in the L&D space that are expanding beyond our imagination and my imagination. I have a pretty wild imagination.
And so what this is telling me and what I'm seeing just from these trends, what I'm seeing from all the research that's out there right now in terms of what organizations are prioritizing, what they see that they need in order to retain their best talent, so much of it is around learning.
But it's still an interesting job market, right? There's still a lot of people looking, and there's people who are taking a less aligned approach and just kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall, and that really bottlenecks and crowds up the hiring process. It's weird in a lot of ways, but I know a lot of people are in the market thinking about moving, and there's this idea of lateral moves.
A lateral move is doing the same thing for pretty much the same pay, same title, same job responsibilities, but just somewhere else. And I get asked that question a lot, right? Like, should I take a lateral move to, I coach on this a lot, like to move on to a company that I really want.
And so this email came in and this person asked for advice that I have on lateral moves and how you know if you can grow into a role or what would be the things you would value to make sure the lateral move was worth it. So she said, I had a company reach out to me for a role and it seems like it would be a lateral move, but I will have more ownership in design and it'll be a better fit industry-wise. My main holdup is the last two moves I made in L&D were lateral moves.
They often will say there's room to grow, but come to find there are a lot of other factors like structural that prevent me from moving up. My company just told me that I couldn't advance in the foreseeable future because of budget, but I love my work. Sometimes it's hard to assess if a company will have future growth and in an interview, they might say all the right things, but things change.
I feel ready to take on bigger roles with more strategic focus, but I understand the importance of finding the right company and culture, which my current role just aren't aligned. So I thought when I read this, I was like, I know so many people who are probably thinking this exact same thing at that exact crossroads. And so I think it's first thing to think about, right, is like our definition of lateral move.
And I already talked about that. But that lateral move is doing the same role and responsibilities for pretty much typically the same pay around the same title. We'll talk about the title in a second. But, you know, around the same title and just doing the exact same thing just somewhere else, whether that's a lateral move in a different department, a different division, a different organization, right? So that is a lateral move. But it's important that we're not so focused on the titles, right?
So it might be a lateral title, but if you're taking on more responsibility, which it sounds like this role might, right? So I think this person said here, I'll have more ownership in design and be a better fit, right? So more ownership in design. So my question is, is that really a lateral move, right? So in this case, maybe the title's lateral, maybe even the pay is lateral.
Although if you are doing more and you have more responsibility, you want to make sure you're getting paid and compensated for that. But I think the first thing to think about is when you are considering a quote unquote lateral move is actually asking yourself if it's a lateral move. So that to me is the first step in the process because you might realize that, oh, hey, it actually isn't a lateral move. It actually is more responsibility and the pay is better.
It might be a different title. I just had a client who was a VP of L&D and now she's an L&D a senior manager, but her scope is much bigger than it was when she was a VP of L&D. Her team is much bigger. She's leading an L&D team on a global scale versus her VP of L&D role was hyper-local before. So it's important to remember that title isn't everything. When we look at, is it a lateral move? Is it a demotion? Is it a promotion?
The title isn't everything. Often, title is one of the things that means the least. So I really want you to make sure that when you all are considering or thinking about lateral moves or even applying for roles in general, that lateral moves, it's not title for title, that it really is responsibility, it's pay. It can be title, right? That it's a multitude of factors that decide if it is lateral or if it's not lateral. So that's the first part of it.
Now, when you think about, okay, maybe this is a lateral move or maybe it's like lateral plus a little bit, right? So maybe it's, you know, borderline lateral. I think it's important to remember we can't predict the future, right? Like we can't, we don't know, yes, can they can say all the right things. We can't predict the future, but we can look at other indicators organizationally.
So for example, taking a look at people throughout the organization, are they in their roles for a long time before getting promoted? Are they there for 25 years before they're getting promoted? Are people who are getting promoted, are you noticing that they have a certain educational background? Again, these aren't surefire reasons for it, but you can start to put together an idea and a hypothesis, right? The hypothesis. You know, I had a client who.
Took kind of a lateral move. So he was senior program manager and then moved to another senior program manager role, but was really in between, was more like senior manager to director, kind of on that cusp there. And he knew he was really ready for those director roles.
But what was interesting is that he ended up taking the senior manager role because what he saw was everyone who was on that team and who was in that org came in at a senior manager and became became director in six months to a year, right? So that was a good indicator on top of asking the right questions, which I'll talk about in a little bit. But that was a good indicator that, hey, this is just more of the norm at this organization.
People don't come in at director level and director responsibilities. They come in at senior manager. They prove themselves. But it's a quick prove yourself. I don't love to use that, but you all know what I mean. But it's a quick bridge to being promoted and to having more responsibilities or a bigger team or things like that. So I think it's important to be able to look at these kind of indicators organizationally that you could research on your own.
Let's say, for example, there's only one layer between you and your boss. Maybe your boss just got promoted. That might say, okay, hey, that might mean I'd have to wait a while. Again, none of it is cut and dry, black and white, but you can start to look at all of these indicators in here and start to put together an external view and a hypothesis. hypothesis. And then we kind of come back to the interviews, right?
Because the question is, in an interview, someone can say all the right things, but the question really becomes for you is, are you asking the right questions? I think a lot of times interviews say, oh, what does growth look like in the organization? If I hear that question one more time, I'm going to vomit all over here, right? What does growth look like in the organization? That's such a broad question, right? And I think people hear, oh, yeah, we love to promote from within, or yeah, we.
Want to get you on a path to promotion. And we hear that and we say, okay, great. They promote from within, path to promotion. We encourage growth, right? But that's not clear, right? So being able to have those conversations, typically in the hiring manager interview, and being honest. And I had this to that client who was in that cusp situation between senior manager and director of being able to say, hey, here's my goals and aspirations.
I'm looking to to be settled somewhere for a couple of years. And part of that being settled is being able to grow into this type of role or grow into this type of ownership or have this type of team. What does the path to growth and promotion look like for something like that? Being really, really honest and upfront. You're not straight up saying like, well, when am I gonna get a promotion and a raise, right?
But being really clear about what your intentions are for yourself, for your career and for this role. So if they say, hey, you know what? But the reality is where it doesn't seem like in the foreseeable future, there's going to be a big opportunity for you to grow or take on additional responsibilities. And while we would like that, we can't, you know, guarantee that. I mean, no one can really ever guarantee anything, but, you know, it gives them an opportunity to be honest with you.
It also gives an opportunity to say, yeah, that's our, that would be our goal too. And here's what a path to promotion, a path to growth would look like. And then you can have those conversations around that of, okay, like, like what, like Like what are those steps? And how does the organization support that? What would our relationship look like in support of that? So you can really understand that. So when you do land that role and you do start, right?
So that client of mine is already less than a month into starting his new role, already having those conversations with his manager around the steps he needs to do to make sure that he's on track to get that promotion. So it wasn't something that was awkward when he first started of like, oh, hey, by the way, it was, no, this is a conversation they had during the interview process. So I get, it can feel a little scary to talk about that and to have those, to have those.
Conversations, but you need to have those in the interview process. Remember, you're interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you. So it's really important to ask the right questions when it comes to interviewing. And again, I hear a lot, what does development look like in the organization? What does growth look like in the organization? And you're speaking on such broad terms that you're going to get a broad answer.
But what's happening inside your brain is your brain is comforted at some point. It's like, okay, there's growth. There's promotions that So we promote from within and you kind of move forward and skim past it, but you need to be really clear. And a lot of that does go back, and I know y'all who know me know I'm going to say this, but it does go back to really understanding what your niche is, right? What do you want to do? How do you want to do it? Who do you want to do it for?
Understanding the impact that you want to have, being able to clearly articulate that in terms of your career and what is the impact that you want to have and how are you going to be able to get there? So I think that's where you can take the research that you do on your own, building in that hypothesis, seeing other people in the organization from a growth perspective, are people moving up and over and around inside the company? Or are people in their roles for five, six, seven years, right?
You'll understand that. And then you can marry that with the questions that you're asking in an interview. And once you do that, it gives you a better indication. Of course, we never know what's going to happen, right? The economy is still in this this weird limo type situation, you never know. Tomorrow, the stock market could crash and then that goes that, right?
It's like we never can really predict the future, but what you can do in terms of this role is look at the factual data, the information that's out there at your disposal and marry that with asking the right questions in an interview. And on top of that, things can can change, right? Like, I think that's an important thing too, where it's like you're thinking as well of, you know, if you've done the research, you've asked the questions, you feel comfortable about it.
Again, that means that early on your first month or so, as you're kind of getting your feet wet, you're already having those conversations. If you notice things are trying to change, right? You start to then think if you're in that organization of, okay, all right, What is now my exit of it? Is that ideal?
No. But if you're three, four, five months in and you're not having career conversations around how you get promoted, how you move to the next step, you can now start gearing up to make that change. Maybe you make that change at the year mark or whatever it looks like for you, right? But you are, if you're noticing early on, so you need to, it's not something like, oh, I'm going to wait until I'm in a year and then talk about getting a path to promotion and how I get promoted.
No, these are conversations that start when you start, maybe not your first day, but after your first 30 days, being able to have a grasp on the organization and the role that you're doing, being able to have those conversations around your career and your career growth. So that way, you know, in your first 90 days, you can get a sense of like, are these conversations that are actually happening? is my manager, my supervisor helping to set me up for success for that promotion?
Or are these things, is this the can getting kicked down the road and I'm not seeing that? And if that's the case, it's a great time to just make sure you're gearing up mentally. Is your resume updated? Are you staying on top of connecting with your network? Is your LinkedIn updated? Because what most people do is when they're in the job searching phase, they go heavy on all that, networking and their resume, right? All of those things.
But they start a new job and everything goes to the wayside. And then they're six months in, nine months in, 12 months in, realizing maybe that career conversation never happened. They were sold a false bill of goods. And now they lost a whole year. They haven't connected with their network. They haven't talked to people. They haven't updated their resume, right? And now it's a much heavier lift. So I encourage you all to be doing that just regardless whether you're happy or not.
But especially if you're getting that sense in that 90-ish day mark that, hey, we're not even having these conversations. It's going to kick down – the cans are going to kick down the road. It's a great opportunity for you to say, all right, it is what it is. I'm going to make sure that I'm starting to plan my exit so that way it doesn't feel like it's a dire situation. So I think that's an important thing to keep in mind as well.
And then lastly, I really think it's important to sit with yourself. And if you really are ready to take on bigger and better, bigger and better exists. this. So it's not just about, you know, I feel so strongly against the idea of like, quote, unquote, getting your foot in the door somewhere. It never, I've, not that I've rarely seen it work out. I think that's an aggressive statement.
But more often than not, that is how I'll put it. I see the getting the foot in the door just ends up leading to resentment. Because you get your foot in the door, but in the door to what? Right? Because you're in the door and you're at this you took this role that you are overqualified for or that wasn't quite up your alley and you're expending all of this energy just to be in the presence of a specific company, it will wear on you and wear on you quickly.
Again, are there people who do it and do it successfully? Absolutely. There's no one right way to find a job and to grow in your career. There's a billion ways to do it. But more often than not, what I see from people is they want to get their foot into a certain company, but they end up really disliking the actual job that they're doing. And remember, the job is what you're doing day in and day out. The company is great, but it's just a company at the end of the day.
I think it's important that if you are really ready to take on bigger and better, that knowing bigger and better exists. That's why I talk about when it comes to finding your niche, it's the right role at the right company because it could be a great company with great values and be super, super aligned. But if the role isn't the right role, and you have to think too, like if that's a role that theoretically maybe you're in for a year before you
get promoted, maybe two years before you get promoted, right? That's a lot of days. That's a lot of days to be in a role that doesn't feel right, that maybe doesn't feel like you are, I mean, especially if you feel you took a lateral move in pay and you're not progressing there, that is the quickest way to be able to build resentment. And then you start to feel like, I'm telling you, when you feel resentment in your job, it doesn't even matter if it's the right company.
It doesn't matter. You're just going to be drained and you're going to feel that resentment. And so to start to eat away at that love that you once had for the company too, because the right company will also value you, pay you, promote you, right? So it's keeping that in mind too. And so it's remembering that if you are looking for bigger and better, you're ready to take on bigger and better, that exists.
And I've mentioned this a couple other podcasts too. It's remembering, when I used to train around sales, one of the things that we would train around with our customers in real estate sales is where there's a preference, there's a premium. So the more preferences one of our customers would have, so they wanted top floor, facing the lake, hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances. is, right? The more preferences that they had, the more the premium was.
So that premium is typically, well, if you're on the top floor, you're paying more. If you have the upgraded kitchen, you're paying more, right? So there's a premium there. The same thing goes when we're thinking about wanting that bigger and better and having that checklist, right, of what the right role to right company looks like for us. The more preferences we have, the more that there is a premium. And the premium you're typically paying on that is going to be time.
So it's also thinking and being realistic about what is the time that you have. If you're in a role right now that you like and you love the work that you're doing, but there's no room for advancement. Do you wanna either go somewhere else and take a lateral move and go through that again? Or do you wanna say, hey, I'm already in that and I'm gonna stick this out while I'm searching for bigger and better? There really is, again, no wrong answer there. It's a very personal answer.
Some people are happy taking a lateral move. Some people are happy taking a move where they have less responsibilities. I have a client who I was just working with and she's just like, I just wanna do easier work. Amazing. I love that for you, right? Like it is so to each their own. But it's to each their own. And you have to really think about the lateral move that you're making. Why are you taking that? Are you taking that because you don't feel you're going to get bigger and better, right?
Then if that's the case, that's a mindset shift that has to be made. Are you taking it because maybe you've been out of work for a certain amount of time and it looks good to take, like you need some money in the bank? Okay, right? There are so many reasons why you can take a lateral move, but it's really up to you to decide, is this the lateral move that's going to move me forward in my career?
Sometimes lateral moves do that. Sometimes we need to, take a step back to go, you know, take one step back to go 10 steps forward or take, you know, a step to the side to go 10 steps forward. And at other times we're taking that step to the side because we don't think we're worthy of the next step of moving forward. So a lot of it is that mindset shift of really thinking about what, where do you want to be? What is it that you want to do? Who do you want to do it for?
What does that look like? And really, really contemplate, well, making a lateral move, get you closer. You know, one of the things I'm going to do a LinkedIn post about this probably sometime this week, so stay tuned. But one of the things I've been thinking a lot about lately in my personal life that I want to start to bring into my coaching world too is this idea of the person you want to be and the life that you want to live in a certain number of years. I've been picking five years.
It's not about the job that I have or the company that I'm building. It's more around the person that I want to be in five years, the kind of life that I want to live in five years. What does that look like? And just really sitting with that and then asking asking myself, okay, is what I'm doing, the choices that I'm making in my life, in my business, all those things, are they getting me closer to that person I want to be?
Are they getting me closer to that life that I want to live? And if they are, great. Okay. Amazing. And if they aren't, the question becomes, well, is it worth it in the short term for me to not get closer to that? And I think the same can be said for thinking and considering about a lateral role, right? So who do you want to be in the next three to five years? How do you want to feel in the next three to five years? What do you want your life to look like in the next three to five years?
Is taking this lateral role getting you closer to that? And if it is, great, right? And if it's not, you have to ask yourself, well, what is worth it then to take this lateral role? So I think having those conversations with yourself is really important. Again, it's very nuanced if you kind of should or should not take on that lateral role or understanding if it's something you can grow into. But I think just going back to it, it's remembering, first and foremost, is it really really lateral?
Are you looking at it more holistically versus like title to title? If it's title, it's money, it's responsibilities, it's team, it's size of the team, it's size of the business, as the organization. The scope of the work that you're doing. So it's important to understand all of those things. Important to look at it beyond the title. It's important to then go back and do your own research on the organization to see what do promotions look like internally.
And then making sure you're asking those right questions on the the interview. I think that's going to be a huge, huge, huge game changer for a lot of you listening is I know so many of you are probably like, oh, shoot, I asked that question, right? Like, what does growth look like in the organization? What does development look like in the organization?
That's a great question you can ask to a recruiter like in a recruiter screen, but that's not getting the answer to you of like what your growth will look like, what your development will look like, what your promotion will look like. You have to be clear about that too. So yeah, so I hope this really helps all of you who are really thinking about, do I take a lateral move? Again, there's no black or white answer pretty much with everything in life, but there is no black and white answer.
So much of it is left up to you, but I really encourage you to do that self-reflection if you are considering a lateral move, if it's something that you're even wondering about, it's something that's proposed to you and really being able to look at it a little bit more holistically than just it's a one for one right there. So I hope this resonated with you you. If it did, please, please, please let me know. Thank you so much for the person who emailed that question.
I was so excited to be able to do a podcast episode about that. And again, we'd love to have you all join the L&D Career Club. So make sure to, if you have any questions, you can check out the website, theovernighttrainer.com slash LDCC. You can always shoot me a DM on LinkedIn if you want to learn more. We are updating our website in the next couple weeks, by we, I mean me, just to be a little bit more clear too about the different tiers as we've moved more towards that models.
And coming up, we also have some really great guests. I've been knee-deep in interviewing some incredible, incredible folks. So keep an eye out over the next couple of weeks for some really great interview podcasts. And I will check you all back here next week. Thank you so much for listening to the L&D Career Club podcast. If today's episode sparked anything inside you, I would love to hear about it.
Feel free to share your ahas and takeaways by sending me a message on LinkedIn or Instagram or by leaving a podcast review. And if you want more support on your L&D career journey, I invite you to join us inside the L&D Career Club membership, where we are redefining what it looks like to grow in your L&D career. Visit theovernighttrainer.com slash programs for more information and to activate your membership. See y'all back here.