Usually you pass through 4 main levels along your career path, start from offering hard work to get low wage and good experience, ending to offering your high experience to get high wage and other benefits, during that, and while you are giving your best, you may experience career path lag, one important reason for this lag is that the workplace strategy restricts your progress due to the nature of its life cycle's phase, simply, to ensure a good career path, you need to transfer to the right workplace at the right time, and to do that you need to understand the 4 levels of career path and the 4 phases of business life cycle and finally how do these stages overlap to accelerate or decelerate your progress.
Career level
When you’re in the thick of building your career and figuring out what you want to do with your life, you’re always moving through the following four levels of career development according to your experience.
1. Entry-level (2-3 years)
You will obtain this role right after getting graduation, or you might get it if you’re building a new career in a different industry, in this stage you should earn technical skills and acquire job experience.
2. Intermediate (up to 6 years)
After gaining a few years of experience, your manager will be less likely to supervise you closely, and you will find more opportunities to work independently, and may lead others, in this stage you should earn managerial skills, start to build a professional network with people relative to your career field within and outside your workplace, and get a suitable wage.
3. Mid-level (up to 10 years)
Mid-level employees usually hold managerial roles, ensure the day-to-day operations are running smoothly, and oversee the goals and achievements of departments, in this stage you should get a good wage, be familiar with the strategies of your industry.
4. Senior or executive-level
In this type of position, you’ll set overall goals for your organization, set policies and procedures and communicate with stakeholders. You should have significant networking and proven skills in your industry.
Business life cycle
The business life cycle is the progression of a business in phases over time; its most commonly divided into four stages.
Phase One: Launch
The most risky phase, where the company begins its operations, sales are low and slowly increasing, number of employees is low, career levels are limited, no sharp limits between departments, systems and procedures are weak and able to be changed many times, business focus on marketing.
Phase Two: Growth
In this phase sales increase rapidly, business passes the break-even point and starts to get profit, work load increases hugely, boundaries appear between departments, all profits are allocated to reinvestment and increasing assets (production lines, distribution centers,… ).
Phase Three: Maturity
Sales volume is high, but not increasing due to market saturation, profit is high, and business has a chance to care about human resources and focus on invention and using new technologies to reposition itself in the market and extend its life cycle, in this phase business often generate new opportunities for new and current employees.
Phase Four: Decline
Due to global market changes, competitors strength, product substitution, or any other reasons; business loss its competitive advantages, sales decrease rapidly, profits decline, and finally business accept the failure and exit market.
Which phase suits your career level?
-In your entry-level it’s recommended to join a company which in the beginning of its maturity phase, where due to high work volume, variety of products, stable systems; you will be able to focus on details and get a good experience about processes, also you can easily find the opportunity to be promoted to the intermediate-level while you can’t get technical experience from a company in launch phase, and opportunities are rare in growth-phase companies although the high work load.
-In your Intermediate level it’s better to continue another three years in your mature company and get a monetary benefits and managerial experience, but in the fourth year you may think to jump a step and transfer to a Launch-phase company in a mid or senior level, as you have a good technical experience and medium managerial experience which is suitable and appreciated in the Launch-phase firms, in this level and that phase the great opportunity is to be very close to leaders and strategy makers and directly learn from them, and contribute pushing the company to the growth-phase, this chance may be impossible in mature-phase companies.
-In the middle of your seniority level, you have both technical and managerial experience, strong leadership skills, and good network, so, why don’t start your own business?