Dear Rachel,
Is it acceptable to ask for a career plan? Meaning, how do you get an accurate description of what life will be like if a career is made out of a media buying/planning position? This question is asked from the point of view of someone who has been in the industry just a few years.-- Planning Planner

Dear Planner, 
In the media business, the best career plan is the one you create for yourself.

It would be nice to think that a career plan comes with the job, all laid out for you, such that if you do this and that, you will rise up through the ranks at a predictable pace.

That's not the way it works. The media business is far too volatile. Clients come and go, agencies are taken over by larger agencies, media directors move on, often taking their best people with them. The ad economy takes a dip and suddenly the job you thought you had has a line drawn through it and you are out on the street.

When might you be promoted? Who knows?

You could be moving well along, learning at a quick pace, and yet not get that promotion you and your supervisor believe you deserve, and for the simple reason that business is hurting and there are no vacancies up the ladder.

Or business could be moving along at a good clip and promotions are handed out to people who don't deserve them and probably won't do all that well in their new positions.

Of course, management will be disinclined to admit any of this. A big part of management's role is to create a sense of stability and order, even as chaos reigns, and for the best of reasons. People work well when they feel that like the floor is not going to fall out from under them in the next few days or weeks.

But the smartest managers won't make promises that cannot be kept.

"It tends to be a difficult process," one New York media veteran tells me. "Sitting down with you to plan your career is also making a commitment that certain events will occur at a certain window in time. Given the nature of the business, they may be making promises that they cannot meet.

“That in turn can lead to dissatisfaction and unhappiness on the part of the ‘planee.’ Ironically, sitting down with someone and mapping out a career plan may end up with the employee leaving if certain promises can't be met."

Instead of thinking of your career path at an agency, think of it as your career path as a media planner. You want to be working at a place where you can excel, and when circumstances change you want to be having an eye out for the next place that's going to offer you an opportunity to achieve.

"My suggestion is to look at where you want to be and learn about the more senior roles by speaking with people in those positions," one media maven tells me. "The onus falls on you to manage your career and your growth. Because even if they do give you a career path, there is no assurance that business conditions will allow it to happen."

Here is a time line for what you can roughly expect in your media career.  Keep in mind, this is very rough.

Someone starting in media can anticipate being promoted to a planner in approximately a year to 16 months and to supervisor in three to four years. From that point on, things start to slow down.

It can take another three to six years or more to move up to AMD. Depending on agency size, the next step can be group media director, or in smaller shops, media director.

The question, as I always advise, is not whether you can rise to the top but whether you want to. If you are thinking in terms of your career, you want to be thinking of what's best for you. You may be happier as a planner without any supervisory responsibility. Often the headaches that go with managing others simply aren't worth the added salary.

Here you have to know yourself, or at least set about coming to understand what you really want in life.  That's more than a career plan, and a lot more valuable.