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How to Use ClickUp Career Maps

How to Use ClickUp Career Map Templates

ClickUp makes it easier to design clear career paths so managers and team members always know what skills, goals, and milestones matter most at every level.

This guide walks you through how to turn the ideas from the original ClickUp career map templates article into a practical, step-by-step workflow you can follow.

Why Build Career Maps in ClickUp

Before you set up anything, it helps to understand why a workspace like ClickUp is ideal for career mapping.

  • Centralizes job roles, responsibilities, and expectations
  • Connects growth goals directly to daily tasks and projects
  • Improves transparency around promotions and advancement
  • Supports consistent coaching and performance reviews

Instead of scattered documents and spreadsheets, you get a structured system where career development lives alongside work execution.

Prepare Your Career Mapping Framework in ClickUp

Start by defining the foundation of your career framework before you touch any templates.

1. Clarify Roles and Levels

List all current roles in your organization and any future roles you expect to add. For each role, define the levels you want, such as:

  • Junior / Associate
  • Mid-level / Specialist
  • Senior
  • Lead / Principal
  • Manager / Director

Document this structure so you can mirror it inside ClickUp later.

2. Define Skills and Competencies

Next, outline the skills required for each role and level. Group them so they’re easy to track in your workspace:

  • Technical skills (tools, programming, platform knowledge)
  • Soft skills (communication, collaboration, leadership)
  • Business skills (domain expertise, strategy, planning)

These skills will later become custom fields, checklist items, or task attributes in ClickUp.

3. Set Growth Milestones

For each level, decide what “ready for promotion” looks like:

  • Quantitative metrics (targets, KPIs, delivered projects)
  • Qualitative behaviors (ownership, initiative, mentoring)
  • Training or certifications required

These milestones will drive the steps your team members follow in their personal career maps.

Set Up a Career Map Space in ClickUp

Once your framework is clear, build a dedicated structure in ClickUp to manage it.

4. Create a Dedicated Space

  1. Create a new Space called something like “Career Development” or “People & Growth”.
  2. Within that Space, add a Folder named “Career Maps”.
  3. Restrict permissions as needed so only HR, managers, and relevant team members can edit core templates.

This gives you a single location where all role definitions and development plans live.

5. Add Lists for Each Department

Inside your Career Maps Folder, create one List per department or function, for example:

  • Engineering Career Maps
  • Marketing Career Maps
  • Sales Career Maps
  • Customer Success Career Maps
  • Operations Career Maps

Each List will hold roles, levels, and individual career plans for that department in ClickUp.

Use ClickUp Career Map Templates

Now you can translate your framework into practical, reusable templates in ClickUp.

6. Build a Role Profile Template

Create a standard task template that describes a single role and level, such as “Senior Product Manager”. Include:

  • Description: Summary of the role’s purpose
  • Responsibilities: Bulleted list of core duties
  • Skills: Required and preferred skills
  • Success metrics: KPIs or outcomes used to evaluate performance
  • Promotion criteria: What is needed to reach the next level

Save this task as a Task Template in ClickUp so you can quickly spin up consistent role profiles for every department.

7. Create an Individual Career Map Template

Next, create a template focused on the person rather than the position. This could be a task or a separate List per employee. Include sections like:

  • Current role and level
  • Target next role and timeline
  • Skill gaps and learning plan
  • Quarterly goals and projects tied to growth
  • Manager notes and feedback

Use subtasks or checklists to break the development plan into concrete actions. Save this layout as an Individual Career Map template inside ClickUp so managers can apply it for every team member.

8. Add Custom Fields for Career Tracking

Custom fields make tracking progress much easier across all your ClickUp career map tasks.

Helpful fields to add:

  • Role Level (dropdown: Junior, Mid, Senior, Lead, Manager)
  • Core Skill Rating (1–5 scale)
  • Readiness for Promotion (Not Ready, Emerging, Ready Now)
  • Target Promotion Date (date field)
  • Mentor / Coach (people field)

Apply these fields to your career lists so you can filter and report on growth across the organization.

Run Career Conversations With ClickUp

With templates in place, you can use ClickUp to support ongoing coaching and reviews.

9. Share and Customize Individual Maps

For each employee:

  1. Apply the Individual Career Map template to a new task or list in the relevant department.
  2. Assign it to the team member and their manager.
  3. Customize the goals, skill gaps, and timeline to match the person.

This becomes the single source of truth for that person’s development plan.

10. Connect Projects to Career Goals

To make growth real, attach work items to development plans inside ClickUp:

  • Link important projects to the skills they build
  • Mention the career map task in project comments
  • Use relationships to connect role profiles with active initiatives

This helps employees see exactly how their day-to-day work supports their long-term path.

11. Use Views for Managers and HR

Configure views in ClickUp so leaders can oversee development at a glance:

  • List or Table view filtered by department and role level
  • Dashboard widgets showing number of people at each level
  • Calendar view of target promotion dates
  • Filter by readiness for promotion to plan succession

These views let you use the same underlying career data in different ways for HR, managers, and executives.

Improve and Scale Your ClickUp Career Maps

Career mapping is not a one-time project. Use feedback and results to refine your setup in ClickUp over time.

12. Iterate on Roles and Templates

Review your role profiles and individual templates regularly:

  • Update skills and responsibilities as roles evolve
  • Refine promotion criteria based on real outcomes
  • Retire outdated templates and standardize on the best versions

Version control and consistent naming in ClickUp make it easier to keep everything aligned.

13. Align With Performance Reviews

Connect your performance review process to your career maps so employees see a clear link between feedback and progression. You can:

  • Attach review documents to the career map task
  • Summarize key achievements in the description
  • Update readiness and target dates after each review

This keeps growth conversations continuous rather than limited to annual cycles.

Next Steps and Additional Resources

To deepen your implementation, you can pair your ClickUp setup with expert consulting or additional tooling. For example, Consultevo provides strategic guidance on workflows and people operations that can complement your internal processes.

Use this how-to guide alongside the ideas and examples from the original ClickUp career map templates article to create a complete, scalable system for career development that lives directly in your daily work environment.

Need Help With ClickUp?

If you want expert help building, automating, or scaling your ClickUp workspace, work with ConsultEvo — trusted ClickUp Solution Partners.

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