I think the important distinction is "doing the responsibilities of the level above yours" and "doing them well." These are actually very non trivial since many people don't actually know the former (what does your boss actually?), and then have no baseline so overestimate their actual competence if they do know. Simply doing more work of the same kind as before will not get you promoted.
Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
231–240 of 286 posts
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#232Ah, the classic "work even harder and do things you're not paid for with zero guarantee that someone will appreciate what you're doing while the company reaps the benefits". What a novel thought, I am so glad I clicked the article, especially since the author isn't even speaking from experience so he has nothing to back up his blogpost with.
Felt like AI slop. I used to do what it recommends, and it got me nowhere other than more stress and higher expectations from senior management.
It uh.. was kind of weird that a junior dev wrote.. an.. rfc? I sense that this is a company that has somewhat adapted that concept for some kind of internal communication, or it's AI slop. All the jobs I'd ever had would probably call something like that a "design proposal" or similar.
Maybe this is a folksy anecdote about a junior developer working for John Email designing the protocol for trinary morse code over a token ring of twisted pair barbed wire. An RFC for that kind of project would be natural.
In the spirit of this, I propose we start calling things like flowcharts, SVG images of digraphs, UML diagrams etc "articles of war" just to spice things up.
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#233Ah, the classic "work even harder and do things you're not paid for with zero guarantee that someone will appreciate what you're doing while the company reaps the benefits". What a novel thought, I am so glad I clicked the article, especially since the author isn't even speaking from experience so he has nothing to back up his blogpost with.
Listen, you don't have to do this and are free to disagree. However, this method has worked and will continue to work. Lots of people are fine just doing their shift and leaving, that's ok. Some people are not satisfied with that and want more, and there are strategies to do more work and get paid to do so.
And the advice is not (necessarily) "work extra, unpaid hours".
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#234Ah, the classic "work even harder and do things you're not paid for with zero guarantee that someone will appreciate what you're doing while the company reaps the benefits". What a novel thought, I am so glad I clicked the article, especially since the author isn't even speaking from experience so he has nothing to back up his blogpost with.
I've almost always been promoted by doing this. If not, I'm able to use the paid training to get another higher paying job at a different company.
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
Felt like AI slop. I used to do what it recommends, and it got me nowhere other than more stress and higher expectations from senior management.
It uh.. was kind of weird that a junior dev wrote.. an.. rfc? I sense that this is a company that has somewhat adapted that concept for some kind of internal communication, or it's AI slop. All the jobs I'd ever had would probably call something like that a "design proposal" or similar. Maybe this is a folksy anecdote about a junior developer working for John Email designing the protocol for trinary morse code over a…
It says "more junior engineer on the team" which could mean senior vs stuff, or regular vs senior. At least that's how I understood it.
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Felt like AI slop. I used to do what it recommends, and it got me nowhere other than more stress and higher expectations from senior management.
Were you simply doing more of the same or were you actually doing the job of the level above you? Those are not the same.
I tested both. None worked.
It is a little bit like “it’s not what you know, is what you can prove”: I mean: “it’s not what you do, is what the boss of your boss sees”. And I emphasize “boss of your boss” because him is who you have to impress (or somebody 2 levels above, anyway).
Also in moderately big to big companies, is all about contacts and personal marketing, which could (and typically is) orthogonal to your actual work.
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#237Ah, the classic "work even harder and do things you're not paid for with zero guarantee that someone will appreciate what you're doing while the company reaps the benefits". What a novel thought, I am so glad I clicked the article, especially since the author isn't even speaking from experience so he has nothing to back up his blogpost with.
Listen, you don't have to do this and are free to disagree. However, this method has worked and will continue to work. Lots of people are fine just doing their shift and leaving, that's ok. Some people are not satisfied with that and want more, and there are strategies to do more work and get paid to do so.
It's almost as if it depends on the context and there isn't a simplistic bumper sticker approach.
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if you are demonstrating performance at your boss's level, that's evidence/proof that a promotion is warranted. It can not be farther from the truth. The best way to stay in the bottom is to work hard, to focus on work so that others have time to focus on advertising themselves, take credit of your good work and backstab you for everything else, befriend and lick the shoes strategically -even develop bed skills, fo…
Cynicism is a seductive drug. It makes you feel good because you don't have to do anything--the game is rigged, so why bother trying? But like all drugs it is ultimately self-sabotaging. Careers are like love: you have to risk heartbreak or you'll never experience joy.
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Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Were you simply doing more of the same or were you actually doing the job of the level above you? Those are not the same.
I tested both. None worked. It is a little bit like “it’s not what you know, is what you can prove”: I mean: “it’s not what you do, is what the boss of your boss sees”. And I emphasize “boss of your boss” because him is who you have to impress (or somebody 2 levels above, anyway). Also in moderately big to big companies, is all about contacts and personal marketing, which could (and typically is) orthogonal to your a…
> Also in moderately big to big companies, is all about contacts and personal marketing, which could (and typically is) orthogonal to your actual work.
As you go up the levels that is exactly the job (for better or worse) so doing that is doing the work at the next level. You are organizational glue that connects people and ensures your team has proper visibility. If you didn't see it that way then that may explain your problems with promotions.
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#240There are a lot of factors that go into achieving success in the workplace. There are usually competing ideas of what success is to you, versus what it is to the one rating you or paying you. You have to, at some level, appear to be good at something they think is good to have around. Sometimes that aligns with what you think is good, sometimes it doesn’t.
Of course the advice in OP is going to be relative, but it’s not a bad rule of thumb to have a good sense of what your immediate does, how they think, what metrics they value, etc. If not for your own advancement- keeping immediate leadership off tilt can greatly increase QOL, or vice-versa. I personally would love to have leadership above me that I think "damn, I'd like to be a little more like that guy" but in almost 20 years of being in the workforce, including military and the likes, that kind of leadership has been hard to come by.