I am a research assistant in a consulting firm and this is my second year in the job as well as my career. While I really enjoy the exposure and experience I am gaining here working with many senior people in the company, I am not satisfied. I put my heart and soul into the research reports, which have been appreciated by my superiors, but every time I have worked on a particular report, I have always felt that there is a lot more that I can contribute than just being the backend support. Do you think it is alright for me to request my superiors to allow me to be a part of the client interaction or am I expected to wait until they think it is the right time and just continue to do my job? Am I too junior in the company to raise such questions?

I am glad that your work is appreciated by your superiors. I am also happy to know that you not only enjoy the work, but also believe that you are getting the right exposure and experience. It is certainly a right thing to put in your heart and soul in the work. This, I must say, is a good beginning.

It is very natural for any good performer to feel like getting in to the front and implementing what he/she believes is right, rather than doing only the backend work. There is nothing like being a junior or being in a position where it is too early to do something more interesting. Keep doing your current role well. You seem to have just completed a year in this role; spend some more time in becoming very good at this role and make more contributions. Start expressing your desire to the top leaders to let you experiment with client interactions. To begin with, join the seniors while they discuss the strategy based on your research, contribute where you can and get noticed for the right reasons. I am sure, as your seniors will discover your ambitions/interests and if they are satisfied that you are good at what you are doing, they will start nudging you towards the roles, which you are interested in. For top performers with the right attitude, coupled with ambitions, sky is the limit for growth.

I always believe that one should evolve in to the new roles rather than abruptly change roles. All the best!

Vivek is a Senior HR professional with over 35 years of experience, ranging several leadership positions, in India and abroad. He leads his consulting practice since 2003 and presently works as a Strategic HR Advisor to Reliance Industries, and is also an independent Director on the Board of Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd. Prior to this, he was based at Singapore for several years where he was Director HR - Operations at Hewlett Packard for the Asia Pacific Region.

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