17 Career development questions for managers to ask

As a manager, how much do you know about your employees’ career development goals? A Deloitte Survey found that two-thirds of employees believe it’s their manager's responsibility to provide them with development opportunities.

But with the fast pace of today’s business world, it’s common for managers to opt for project-focused weekly, bi-weekly or sometimes monthly check-ins with their direct reports.

Showing an interest in your employees’ advancement demonstrates their value to the company and fosters loyalty. A 2015 survey found that managers who know their employees’ strengths are 71% more likely to have employees who are engaged and energized.

Asking the right career coaching questions will also help you maximize their potential and assign tasks that best fit their skills. Employees who have strengths discussions with their managers are 78% more likely to feel their work is valued and appreciated.

Even if you’ve encouraged employees to come to you with concerns, taking an active and vested interest in their professional development is one of the keys that will set you apart as an effective manager. We know it can be time-consuming, but it will pay off in the long run as you and your team are increasingly aligned, and individuals are satisfied in their jobs.

Knowing how to ask the right questions can help you both inspire, and lead your employees in a constructive dialogue about their professional development. We’re here to help by providing some example questions you can ask employees during your 1:1.

What makes a good career development question?

Different types of questions can be used to help you get to know your direct reports better, and in turn, give you the answers you’re looking for.

Closed questions (with a yes or no answer) can be useful if you need to get straight to the point. But the key to a good 1-on-1 is being open-minded, ready to listen, and let the other person do the talking.

Ask open-ended questions to glean further information and encourage more thoughtful responses. This is the best type of question to use when you want to lead your employees to a deeper reflection about setting up their goals for professional development.

Career development questions to inspire and motivate

When coming up with a professional development plan, it may be challenging for your employees to set goals if they’re not fully aware of their strengths and interests in the workplace.

Get them thinking with these questions:

1. What do you enjoy most and least about your job?

2. What project have you enjoyed working on recently, and why?

3. What other strengths or skills do you have that you feel are not being utilized?

4. What would others on the team be most likely to come to you for help on?

5. What do you like to do in your free time, that could be reapplied at work?

6. Which new responsibilities would you like to take on in the next few months and years?

7. Which skills would you need to refine to help you achieve these goals?

8. What kind of projects would you like to be involved in more, to help you with the above?

9. If you were in charge of our next team project, what would you do differently?

10. What do you see as our team’s greatest strengths and weaknesses?

11. What could we do to address them?

12. Where do you think your skills would add the most value?

13. How do you think you can best contribute to company objectives?

14. Do you have any ideas of how the team can contribute to company objectives?

15. What tools and resources help you the most in your daily work? Is there anything missing?

16. Are there any learning opportunities you’d like to pursue?

17. How can I help you achieve these goals?

Tips for asking good career development questions

Having a solid list of questions is just one part of the feedback puzzle. You can add to this list and ask them effectively with the right mindset.

By keeping the following in mind as you brainstorm more questions and meet with your direct reports, you can be confident that you are asking helpful questions and getting useful, actionable feedback.

The above questions all support these best practices for asking career coaching questions that resonate with your team:

• Encourage employees to think deeply about their current performance

• Help them identify ambitious yet attainable career goals

• Give them food for thought

• Help them to align their goals with company objectives

• Understand how you can help

Monitoring the progress of your career development efforts

Another great way to find out how your employees feel about their performance and role in the team, is by keeping a record of the feedback they receive from you and their peers, for which there are purpose-built platforms available.

Using feedback reports as a reference can help you refresh and prepare beforehand for an engaging and personalized conversation with each team member.

Leveraging career development questions

With this list as a jumping-off point, you have a good start to your mega career coaching questions list. 

When you meet with your direct reports, try to keep the best practices we mentioned in mind. If you have a clear idea of where you want the conversation to go, and the impact you want it to have, you will have more success.