A Career Built One Step at a Time
For many professionals, staying with one employer for years has traditionally been seen as the safest route to career growth. Brittany Harris-Nelson took a different approach.
Now 32, Harris-Nelson works as an assistant director of student engagement at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She describes her professional journey as being similar to “a frog moving across lily pads,” with each move bringing her closer to the role she ultimately wanted.
Photo Credit: Adam Smiley Poswolsky
Ten Jobs Across Six Universities
Harris-Nelson’s path to her current position was anything but straightforward. Over the past 10 years, she has worked in 10 different jobs spread across six universities.
Her career began while she was still a student, taking on several campus positions before moving into full-time roles. Along the way, she worked in areas including office management, admissions and student advising, each offering a different perspective on how higher education institutions operate.
Rather than viewing each job as a final destination, she approached every opportunity as a chance to develop new expertise. That strategy eventually led her to the administrative position she had been aiming for.
Building Skills Through Every Move
Instead of making career changes solely for higher pay or a new employer, Harris-Nelson focused on expanding her professional skill set.
Each position exposed her to different aspects of university operations, allowing her to build experience in student services, administration and engagement. By combining those experiences over time, she became qualified for more senior responsibilities.
Her approach reflects a growing trend among younger professionals who see strategic job changes as a way to broaden their experience rather than remaining in a single role for many years.
A Different View of Career Progression
Harris-Nelson believes career advancement does not always follow a straight line. She says every position played an important role in preparing her for the next opportunity, even when the connection was not immediately obvious.
That perspective challenges the traditional idea that long-term success depends on staying with one employer. Instead, she sees professional growth as the result of carefully chosen experiences that build on one another.
Why the Story Matters
Career mobility has become increasingly common as employees seek opportunities to gain new skills, expand their professional networks and pursue roles that better match their long-term ambitions.
Harris-Nelson’s experience highlights how intentional job changes can serve as stepping stones rather than signs of instability, particularly in fields where broad institutional knowledge and varied experience are valued.
Looking Ahead
Now established at Wake Forest University, Harris-Nelson has reached a role she spent years working toward. Her decade-long journey across multiple universities illustrates that career progression can take many forms and that a carefully planned series of moves may ultimately lead to the destination a professional has in mind.
