Key Findings: • The developmental quality of job assignments is critical for building managerial competencies. What matters most isn’t how long junior managers have been in an assignment, but the nature of that assignment. • Not all junior managers take advantage of such job assignments. Managers with a strong learning goal orientation—who view challenging tasks as opportunities to learn—are more likely to be in highly developmental job assignments, provided they have access to them. • Certain managers gain more from developmental assignments than others. Managers with stronger learning goal orientations gain more from highly developmental assignments, in terms of competencies, than those with weak learning goal orientations.