Latest / Career Coaching with Fexingo: Professional Coaches, Career Counselors, and Guidance for Workers / How to Build Career Optionality Without Switching Jobs
Transcript
- Lucas: You hear the standard career advice all the time: climb the ladder or jump ship. And those are fine options. But there's a third path that I think is actually more powerful for most people, and it doesn't get talked about nearly enough. Luna: What's the third path? Lucas: Building career optionality without switching jobs. Staying put, but deliberately expanding what you can do and who knows about it, so that you're not stuck if the floor drops out — or if a better opportunity floats by. Luna: I like that. It's like being a free agent while still on the team. Lucas: Exactly. Let me give you a concrete example. A few years ago, I spoke with a marketing manager at Procter & Gamble — let's call her Sarah. She was in her mid-thirties, good at her job, but she felt like she was in a holding pattern. She wasn't unhappy, but she wasn't growing. Standard advice would say update your resume, start networking, maybe leave. She didn't do that. Luna: What did she do instead? Lucas: She ran what I call an optionality audit. She looked at her current role and asked: what skills could I build right here that would make me more valuable to P&G and more marketable everywhere else? She identified three gaps: data analytics, public speaking, and cross-functional project management. None of those were in her job description at the time. Luna: So she just started learning them on the side? Lucas: Not exactly. She didn't take a night course or a certification. She found ways to build those skills inside her existing job. For data analytics, she volunteered to help the finance team with a quarterly forecast. For public speaking, she asked to present at the monthly all-hands instead of her boss. For cross-functional work, she offered to lead a pilot project that touched three different departments. Luna: That's smart. She turned her day job into a growth platform. Lucas: Right. And the key insight is she didn't need permission to build those skills. She just needed to find the work that was already happening and raise her hand. Over 18 months, she built a portfolio of experiences that made her indispensable to her current team and highly attractive to recruiters. Luna: Did she end up leaving? Lucas: She did not. She got promoted internally. But the interesting part is, she told me she felt more secure after the 18 months than she ever had before, even though she stayed. Because she knew she could leave if she wanted to. That's the optionality. Luna: So the confidence came from knowing she had a choice, not from actually exercising it. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a much healthier place to be than feeling trapped. So let's talk about how to actually do this. I think there are three steps: audit, align, and act. Luna: Walk me through the audit. How do you figure out what skills to build? Lucas: Start by looking at your team or your department. What's a skill that's underutilized right now, something that would make your group run better if someone had it? For Sarah, she noticed the marketing team had plenty of creative talent but almost no one who could speak the language of finance. That was her opening. Luna: So you're looking for a gap that's also a growth opportunity. Lucas: Exactly. You don't want to pick something random. You want something that aligns with where your industry is heading. For instance, if you're in a traditional retail role today, building e-commerce analytics skills is probably a better bet than perfecting your in-store merchandising knowledge. Not that merchandising is useless, but the optionality comes from the direction of change. Luna: The second step: align. What does that mean practically? Lucas: Align means you find a way to make your skill-building visible to the people who matter. You can be the best data analyst in the company, but if nobody knows you exist, your optionality is limited. Sarah made sure her presentations were noticed. She asked for feedback from senior leaders. She wrote a short monthly internal newsletter summarizing her pilot project's results. Luna: So it's not just doing the work, it's marketing the work internally. Lucas: That's a big part of it. And it doesn't have to be loud or obnoxious. The simple tactic I recommend is a 15-minute weekly practice: every Friday, write three bullet points about something you learned or accomplished that week, and send it to your boss and one or two peers. That's it. Over a few months, you build a reputation as someone who's always learning. Luna: That's low effort but high visibility. Lucas: Very. And it costs nothing. The third step is act. This is where you actually raise your hand for stretch assignments. But you have to be strategic about which ones you take. Not all extra work builds optionality. Some of it is just extra work. Luna: How do you tell the difference? Lucas: Ask yourself: will this assignment teach me something I can put on a resume or talk about in an interview? If the answer is no, it's probably just work. If yes, it's a growth opportunity. Sarah's pilot project taught her how to manage a budget, coordinate with vendors, and report to executives. Those are all resume bullets. Luna: What about the risk of overloading yourself? You don't want to burn out. Lucas: That's real. The trick is to say no to the low-optionality stuff so you have energy for the high-optionality stuff. And you can be transparent about it. You can say to your boss: 'I'd love to take on this stretch project, but I'll need to deprioritize X for a few months.' Most good managers will respect that. Luna: So it's about having a conversation, not just silently suffering. Lucas: Exactly. And this is where building optionality actually makes you a better employee. Because you're bringing new skills to your current role. Sarah's data analytics work helped the marketing team make better decisions. Her presentation skills made her a more effective communicator. Her cross-functional experience made her a better collaborator. Luna: So the company wins too. Lucas: Absolutely. That's why this approach often leads to internal promotions. Companies are desperate for people who can do more than their job description. If you're the one who builds those skills, you become the obvious candidate when a bigger role opens up. Luna: But what if your company doesn't have the opportunities? What if you're in a very rigid organization and there's no room for stretch projects? Lucas: That's a fair point. In that case, you might need to look outside your immediate team. Can you volunteer for a cross-departmental task force? Can you join an employee resource group and take on a leadership role? Can you propose a new initiative? Sometimes you have to create the opportunity rather than wait for it. Luna: And if none of that works, then maybe the optionality you're building is a signal that it's time to leave. Lucas: Exactly. Because by then, you've already built the skills and the network. You're ready. And that's the beauty of this approach. Whether you stay or go, you're in control. Luna: I want to come back to something you said earlier about visibility. Do you think there's a gender or bias dimension to who gets seen for their extra work? Lucas: Absolutely. Research shows that women and people of color are often expected to take on extra work without recognition, and their contributions are less likely to be noticed. So the visibility tactic — the Friday email, the monthly newsletter — is even more important for people who might otherwise be overlooked. Luna: And it's not just a tactic, it's a way to correct a systemic bias. Lucas: Right. If you're not getting credit for your work, you need to make sure your work is seen. That's not bragging, it's professional survival. And it's something managers should actively look for — who's doing the invisible work? That's often where the highest-optionality skills are being built. Luna: Good point. So let's say someone listening wants to start this today. What's the first concrete step they should take? Lucas: Block 30 minutes on your calendar tomorrow morning. Do your own optionality audit. Write down three skills that would make you more valuable in your current role and more marketable outside it. Then pick one and find a way to start building it this week. Maybe that means volunteering for a project, asking to shadow someone, or simply starting a conversation with your boss. Luna: I think that's actionable. And it doesn't require quitting your job or going back to school. Lucas: No. It requires intentionality and a little bit of courage to raise your hand. But the payoff is huge. You're not just building skills; you're building a career safety net that's woven from the work you're already doing. Luna: And if this show has helped you think through a career move or decision, we hope you'll consider supporting it. We keep the show ad-free on purpose because we want the advice to be straightforward, not sponsored. If you find value in that, you can support us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just a way to keep this going. Lucas: Yeah, and the goal is to keep offering the kind of practical, specific guidance we talked about today. Your support helps us do that without selling your attention to advertisers. Luna: So back to the audit — one thing I'd add is that the best time to build optionality is when you don't need it. When you're happy, when your job is stable, that's when you have the energy and the leverage to make strategic moves. Lucas: That's the key. Don't wait until you're desperate. Start now, even if you love your job. Because the optionality itself will make you love it more — you'll feel like you're there by choice, not by circumstance.