This blog post was inspired by an article in the March/April 2025 edition of the Harvard Business Review, titled “How Women can win in the workplace”.
I paraphrase and quote directly from the article, weaving my own thoughts and experience into the article.
We are often told to go and find jobs to “get some experience” , but what does this experience mean in practice, and how can we earn the necessary experience to help us achieve our career ambitions?
The central problem underpinning the article was that although women tend to outperform men in formal education, such as undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorate degrees, they fall behind men when it comes to promotions, and attaining senior leadership roles, which exacerbates the “gender gap” in terms of pay.
The answer suggested to the problem is a recognition that formal education and basic skills get you only halfway to your full earning potential, with most of the attribution being the knowledge, skills and wisdom gained on the job, which they term experience capital.
Three strategies are put forward for helping people to build their experience capital. These include:
- Find the right company, not just the right job
Joining the right company earlier in your career, ideally within the first five working years, accounts for 50% of the variation in experience capital among workers on average.
The following traits have been identified in companies that will help boost your experience capital:
- A strong learning culture – seek out companies in which all employees are offered education and training, and actively encouraged to take advantage of them.
- Successful competitive strategy – identify organizations that have a clear strategy for winning in their industry and execute it systematically – whether through driving innovation, involving employees in continuous improvement, or building a broad set of leaders and general managers.
- High and cross functional mobility – a company that actively helps employees move into new roles internally increases their experience capital. Workers develop greater agility and feel their organization invests in and values them which increases engagement and retention.
- Diversity -Organizations with leadership teams that reflect diverse cultures and genders are more likely to make better decisions and be open to continuous improvement.
How do you go about finding companies which exhibit these traits?
The article suggests the following tips:
- Talk to people who work at these organizations, and compare what they say to websites such as Glassdoor.
- Ask how many hours a year are employees encouraged to invest in their personal learning
- What company support and resources are there to ensure that learning actually happens
- What is the promotion structure?
- How high is employee turnover?
- What percentage of employees make cross-functional moves within the organization
- What kinds of formal sponsorship and mentorship programs exist
These answers should provide some useful conversation starters when having introductory calls or coffee chats with people working at these organizations, or indeed, when interviewing for roles at these organizations.
Generally speaking, the types of organizations which tend to tick these boxes, tend to be well established, large corporations. This is because by definition, they have become successful in whatever they do over many decades, by following a certain formula that has enabled their success. They have the financial resources and capability to attract and retain talent, and to continually invest in their people, which further strengthens the company’s strategic position. By joining such a company early on in your career, you can equip yourself with the necessary tools to perform well in your role, cultivate a network to progress up the ladder, and to open doors to other functions in the company. And in time, you then become sought after by smaller, lesser established organizations, which place a high value on the skills and experience you can bring, which provides a great exit option.
I started working at Toyota Financial Services last year, which is part of the global Toyota Motor Corporation. This company ticks most of the boxes above, and is very different from all the other companies I have worked with in the past, in terms of the structure of the company, as well as the learning and development opportunities that it provides.
2. Make big, bold moves
Amongst all the career moves we make, two types in particular play an enormous role in the growth of our capital experience. The first is what they call a big move, which involves starting over in a new occupation or industry (or country, perhaps). This type of move is typically made when you find yourself in the wrong occupation or industry. Perhaps it just isn’t a fit, or perhaps the field is being disrupted by generative AI.
The second type of move is a bold move, in which you take a role that requires a significant number of new skills. To determine whether a move is bold, we use a measure called “skill distance – the percentage of new skills needed in the new job. The median skill distance for all job moves is roughly 25%, meaning that quarter of the required skills were not used in the person’s previous role. When a job move has a skill distance higher than 25%, the move is considered a bold one.
One way to increase your experience capital is to make bold moves throughout your career. Your pay tends to go up the most when you take a new job that requires novel skills, which is when your learning curve is the steepest.
When you make multiple bold moves during your career, you compound your experience capital.
Reflecting on my career to date, I have made one bold move in particular, which was when I was promoted from Sub-Sahara Capital Group to become the CFO of a newly formed property development joint venture. I had no prior property experience, and was making progress in studying for my accounting qualification. I was selected as I was perceived as having the necessary “raw materials” to perform well in the role. Since the role involved many skills which I didn’t have before starting the role, the learning curve was steep. Some of these skills included technical skills (accounting, tax computations and returns), and also softer skills (negotiating leases with tenants, and collaborating with project managers). The role came with a bump up in pay, with potential for future bonuses, recognition amongst the wider group, and more autonomy within my role. In fact within a year of starting the role, I was sitting on a panel of the country’s premier real estate investment conference, discussing trends in real estate development.
- Stretch yourself – make sure you’re reaching for roles with a high skill distance. If you go after jobs that require only the skills you already possess, you won’t maximise your experience capital.
- Build your narrative – Before starting your search, know what story you plan to tell. Even if previous roles didn’t work out, figure out how to describe them as learning opportunities that provided you with valuable skills. To persuade companies and hiring managers to make a bet on you, you need to talk about what you’ve liked and learned in your previous roles, not what made you unhappy or frustrated.
- Activate your network – Big moves often require crossing over into new industries or functions, whilst bold moves involve getting people to take a chance on you even through you may not yet have all the necessary skills for a job, so networking is key. This is perhaps the most difficult aspect – getting people to take a chance on you even though you may not yet have all the necessary skills for a job. The writer advises to systematically free up time on your calendar for coffee chats, lunches etc, and use this time to talk to people in areas you’re interested in. Ask them about their roles, other people they think you should talk to and, whether they can connect you directly to those people. Continue doing this until you understand exactly what kind of opportunity you’re looking for and what truly interests you.
Be straightforward and clear as you reach out to people. “I’m really interested in this area. How can I best prepare myself and build the right skills?” As you make progress and start to apply for positions, update people in your network who’ve been helpful. This is especially important in the case of sponsors of mentors, who are likely to be in the room when hiring ad promotion decisions are made.
- Signal the right skills – Showcase your soft skills, such as teamwork, conflict resolution, and communication, as well as your technical skills. Often job seekers have the skills that are required for a role, but fail to highlight them on their resumes, LinkedIn profiles, or other ways.
- Close with confidence – At the end of an interview, make it clear why you’re the person for the job. To pull off big and bold moves, you have to believe in yourself, the skills you’ve developed and your potential to apply them in a new role.
3. Enter the power alley
When it comes to building experience capital, two types of positions are accelerators: leadership roles and those with profit and loss (P&L) responsibilities. The more time you spend there, and the wider the variety of roles you hold there, the more experience capital you’ll accumulate.
Leadership roles – The benefits of working in a leadership role include: you have a seat at the table in decision making and are able to influence outcomes, and your work becomes far more visible. You have an opportunity to build a network of senior colleagues, which can help open doors for you, and you can open doors for others.
P&L Roles – holding a line role is a good way to acquire a deep understanding of the business, have an impact, and move up the career ladder. A line role is any position that directly generates revenue for an organization.
People working in line roles will accrue critical experience capital that will help them when they’re being considered for promotions or lateral rotations. Workers who start out in line roles have lifetime earnings that are 20% higher, on average, than support roles.
P&L management experience is often desired for positions in the C-Suite.
A starting point is to ask yourself whether the positions you’ve held so far, including your current job, have been line, support, or leadership roles.
In my career, I have had one role in particular which would be considered a line role, which was the CFO role at the property development joint venture. This role was both a leadership and a P&L role. Previous roles were analyst/associate roles at investment companies. I used to wonder why management at portfolio companies often earned more than workers at the investment companies, but this is the reason. The portfolio roles/PE-Backed roles, were often P&L roles, which was critical for the success of the investment fund.
Once you identify the type of role that you want, make a plan to reach for it. This can mean directly asking your boss or others what to do, to be qualified for it. You may also consider making a lateral move to better position yourself.
4. Go where the jobs are
When choosing an occupation, it pays to be strategic and pick an area that’s growing. If you’re currently in one that’s shrinking, you’ll need to think about reskilling and upskilling.
Growing occupations – in the US, the industry that will experience the greatest job growth is healthcare, STEM, and transportation.
Declining occupations – automation and generative AI will lead to declining opportunities primarily in four categories of jobs: customer service and sales, food service, office support and production (manufacturing).
New occupational categories – By 2030 technology and other trends will help create entirely new kinds of jobs.
Cross industry opportunities – workers don’t realize they can do a very similar job in a very different industry. As industries grow and shrinks, it’s important to keep that possibility in mind. In some cases it may be worth trading a higher salary for a role in a growth sector. Just as when you move to a new occupation, when you move to a new industry you take relevant skills with you, and increase your experience capital.
When I moved to Toyota Financial Services as a contractor, I had zero experience within the automotive industry, and limited experience within financial services. However, my natural curiosity led me to learn as much as possible about the domain, in order to effectively perform and grow in my role.
Embrace technology
The article sets out several ways to embrace technology.
- Be an AI power user – By 2030, it is estimate that 30% of the activities of every job in the US, on average, could be done by automation and generative AI. In some jobs up to 70% of activities can be augmented by gen AI. Although the technology is complex to create, it is easy to apply. The basis perquisite is the ability to ask good questions and have a dialogue with the tools.
- Pilot new technology use cases – seeking out opportunities and demonstrating that you are a committed early adopter can give you visibility and leadership opportunities in your organization. Parts of the process to experiment with include technology design, user experience design, analytics and research.
- Prioritize technology skill development – Set 10% of your workweek to invest in yourself and skills you need to advance your technology experience capital. Have people with technology skills on your team, as this improves effectiveness as well as learning from these colleagues.
Finally, the article ends with some questions to help us navigate the workplace.
- What is my ambition, and how can I embrace it?
- Am I strategically building a portfolio of experiences that will help me meet my goals?
- What investments am I making in myself that will increase my chances of success?
- Do I have the right short- and long-term habits in place to ensure my career longevity?
- Am I asking for help?
- Am I giving back to my communities and lifting others around me?