How we encouraged all Dropboxers to grow and explore their potential during Career Week

The concepts of career planning and managing, while an important part of growth at any job, can often seem overwhelming. What do you focus on? How do you make progress against your goals? Where do you even start?

At Dropbox, we’ve tried to establish clear guidelines, policies, and helpful resources to make answering these questions a lot easier. In fact, we have an entire team dedicated to helping Dropboxers learn how they can take their careers to the next level. And during Career Week at Dropbox, the Learning & Organizational Development team kicked the theme of “Crafting Your Career” into full gear to help their colleagues identify and reflect on their unique capabilities and distinctive strengths, and transform their mindsets around building a career.

First, the team scheduled a host of virtual events geared toward Dropboxers of all kinds, no matter where they are in their professional journey. After a Monday keynote led by Whitney Johnson, an Executive Coach and lecturer in Harvard Business School’s Corporate Education Department, the rest of the week was filled with more than 20 webinars and panels. These focused on topics from succeeding as a woman in leadership to keeping career development on track in a virtual environment to learning to self-advocate and beyond.

“We chose ‘Crafting your Career’ as our theme to help Dropboxers reframe their mindset around what it means to build a career — and to help them realize that career is about much more than climbing the career ladder,” said Talent Management leader Rachel Chadderdon. “We offered a meaningful experience for our global Dropboxers by enlisting international leaders and panelists to host sessions offered at regionally-friendly times.”

But the team didn’t stop at live offerings. In recognition that people need career development assistance and advice all year long, they made sure our internal career development hub is filled with resources designed to help Dropboxers navigate their career journeys. And finally, they created a digital guidebook that serves as an ongoing resource for other career-related topics. Dropboxers can go here to learn more about mentorship, the steps involved in making an internal transfer, and how to find and navigate their individual career frameworks and core responsibilities.

Rachel said, “It was important to ensure our Career Week teachings extended beyond just the week, so we’re continuing to promote resources for Dropboxers that support their long-term career growth. For example, we have a Personal Growth Plan that we encourage Dropboxers to complete that allows them to have dialogue with their managers about their career growth throughout the year.”

Ready to up your career development game and explore some of the job opportunities that may be open already? Check out our jobs page.