Free template
Career Development 1:1 Template
Most career growth gets squeezed into the last five minutes of a busy weekly check-in, or worse, it waits until review season. A dedicated career development check-in fixes that. It’s a separate, forward-looking conversation about where your teammate wants to go and what would help them get there.
Below is a template you can copy into any doc and use this quarter. The big idea: this conversation belongs to your teammate. You show up as a coach, not a judge. For the talking part, pair it with how to talk about career growth in a 1:1.
The template (copy this)
Career Development Check-in with [Your name] & [Teammate name] Date: __________ | Revisit: Quarterly 1. Where you want to grow (1 to 2 year horizon) - The role, scope, or kind of work I'm aiming toward: - Why it matters to me right now: 2. Strengths to build on - What I'm already good at that I want to lean into harder: - Where I've gotten the most positive signal lately: 3. Skill or experience gaps - What I'd need to learn or do to get there: - The one gap that matters most this quarter: 4. One concrete next step (before our next conversation) - What I'll do: - By when: 5. What the manager can open up - A project, stretch assignment, or visibility I could use: - Who I should be connected to, or where you can sponsor me: 6. Cadence - Next career check-in: __________ - What we'll look at then:
Send it to your teammate a few days ahead and ask them to fill in what they can before you meet. The blanks are theirs to answer; your job in the room is to listen, push for specifics, and figure out what you can open up. If you want a regular weekly frame to sit alongside this, grab the 1:1 meeting agenda template.
What each section is for
Where you want to grow
Start with the horizon, roughly the next one to two years. It doesn't have to be a title; it can be a kind of work they want more of, a skill they want to be known for, or a level of scope. Keeping it a year or two out makes it real without making it feel locked in.
Strengths to build on
Fixing weaknesses is one path to growth, but the fastest progress usually comes from doubling down on what someone's already good at. Ask where they've gotten the most positive signal lately, and how they could do more of it.
Skill or experience gaps
Now name what stands between here and the horizon. Resist the urge to list everything. Pick the one gap that matters most this quarter so the conversation stays focused and the next step is obvious.
One concrete next step
This is the section that turns a nice chat into actual movement. One thing, owned by your teammate, with a date, to be done before the next conversation. Small and finished beats ambitious and abandoned.
What the manager can open up
Here's where you do your part. A stretch project, a chance to present to a wider group, an introduction, or sponsorship for an opportunity they can't reach on their own. Access is often the thing a manager can give that no amount of effort from the teammate can replace.
Cadence
Before you close, set the next career check-in, usually a quarter out, and agree on what you'll look at then. Putting it on the calendar is what keeps career development from quietly slipping back to review season.
A filled-in example
To make it concrete, here’s what the template looks like once a teammate, say a mid-level engineer named Priya, has filled it in.
Where I want to grow: I want to move toward leading the technical direction on a feature area, not just shipping tickets. Roughly a tech-lead kind of role in the next year or so. It matters to me because I like the design decisions more than the individual coding lately.
Strengths to build on:People come to me when something is broken in production, and I’m good at untangling it calmly. I want to turn that into being the person who prevents the fire, not the one who fights it.
Gap that matters most this quarter:I’ve never run a project across more than one other engineer. I need reps coordinating work and communicating a plan to people who aren’t in the weeds with me.
One concrete next step:I’ll write and present the technical plan for the notifications rework to the team by the end of next month.
What you can open up: Let me own that notifications project with two other engineers, and bring me into the planning meeting with the product lead so I get exposure to how scope gets decided.
Revisit:Next career check-in in three months; we’ll look at how the notifications project went and what it taught me about leading.
Notice that the goal is forward-looking and owned by Priya, the gap is narrowed to one thing, and the next step has a date. The manager’s job is the second-to-last line: opening up the project and the room she couldn’t get into on her own.
Keep this separate from the review
It’s tempting to fold career talk into the performance review, since you’re already sitting down to discuss the person. Resist it. A review is evaluative and looks backward; a career conversation is coaching and looks forward. When the two get mixed, people stop being honest about their ambitions because they’re bracing for a rating.
The same goes for the regular weekly check-in. Career growth deserves more than a tacked-on five minutes when both of you are already tired and watching the clock. Give it its own time on its own cadence. If you want a sharper read on how to think about where someone is now versus where they could go, read performance vs. potential.
Career development FAQ
How often should you have a career development conversation?
Quarterly works for most people. That's often enough to keep momentum and adjust course, but spaced out enough that there's progress worth talking about. You can still touch career growth briefly in weekly check-ins; the dedicated conversation is where you go deeper.
How is a career development 1:1 different from a performance review?
A review looks backward and rates how someone did against expectations. A career development check-in looks forward and is owned by the teammate: where they want to go and how to get there. Reviews are evaluative; career conversations are coaching. Keep them separate so growth talk doesn't get tangled up with judgment.
What if there is no obvious promotion path?
Growth runs in more directions than up. Plenty of meaningful development is lateral or deeper: a new skill, a bigger scope inside the same level, mentoring others, or moving toward work that energizes them. Ask what kind of work they want more of, rather than what title comes next. Some of the best career conversations have nothing to do with a promotion.
How do you make career goals concrete instead of vague?
Tie every goal to one next step with a date. “Get better at communication” goes nowhere; “present the roadmap to the wider team by end of next month” does. End each conversation with a single owned action, then revisit it at the next one. Concrete and small beats ambitious and abstract.
Keep career goals from getting lost
A template gets you a good conversation. The hard part is what happens after: the next step gets forgotten, the goal disappears until the following quarter, and you start the next career check-in from scratch. MeetFika keeps each Career Goal visible, carries follow-ups forward on its own, and pulls a year of growth context together when it’s time to write the review.
That’s MeetFika. Free to start.