It's hard for me to take advice like this seriously when, in my experience, things like budget and manager's social influence is more deciding in whether you get promoted or not than whatever work you did.
Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
121–130 of 286 posts
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#122This is only good advice if your company has high profit margins or funding and an expectation of growth, or your manager is extremely kind and trusting, or there are signs your manager is about to be fired/reorged and consultants or higher ups are asking if you want to replace them. More established industries or stagnating companies with low profit margin and no VC backing do not have a lot of room at the top, there are "negative selection" processes for management, and trying to do your boss's job is likely to be seen as insubordination. In those organizations the managers keep their job not by excelling at it (typically they would have leveled out due to the Peter principle) but by actively culling threats, and have all kinds of dirty tricks they can use to get rid of you if you show too much initiative.
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#123While this is true... it's also letting yourself be massively taken advantage of, and underpaid. Yes, the best way to get promoted is to do work above your level. The problem is, you're not getting paid what you deserve for that . If you're always doing this, you're always being underpaid by a full level . Which is why much better advice is to try to get promoted by switching companies and jumping a level in the proc…
As a boss-man myself, I’ve seen this “don’t let them take advantage of you” sentiment expressed in many discussions about comp and promotions, but I can’t really say I understand it. Am I just out of touch? As I read it, the article is simply trying to help people understand what kind of work is valuable to a company and therefore what they should focus on to make themselves valuable. I presume that making yourself v…
In my experience, the issue is that performing at the next level is not a guarantee for promotion. So when you do work at the next level, they can just say “it’s not sustained enough” or whatever reason and then you’re stuck — can’t really produce less so you end up looking for a way out because all that work was kind of for nothing.
I look for opportunities outside my job requirements to learn and grow but it gets really tiring and exhausting when you’re not rewarded for it. Basically there is a lot of upside for the employer but for the employee it’s a bit of a crapshoot
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 1. Promotions are not a reward for past performance. Instead, they are a bet that you will contribute more towards those goals with a promotion than without one. Actually, you operate on the next level for certain amount of the time. You work with your manager to file for your promotion case. That's how the typical big corps work with promotions. So technically, it is using your past experience to prove that you ar…
> Actually, you operate on the next level for certain amount of the time. You work with your manager to file for your promotion case. That's how the typical big corps work with promotions. This has always struck me as a pretty juicy deal going for the corporation. They get N years of "next level" work out of you while still being able to pay those N years in "previous level" salary. Good deal for them. How ridiculous…
> You pay me at the next level for 3 years, and only then I'll know you're serious and will start working at that level.
Did you just describe an academic scholarship?
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#125[dead]
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#126Sorry but what year and working environment is this post from? Things have radically changed in the last 5 years.
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#127My advice is a little different. It’s make the life of your boss insanely easy. Similar in nature to post but slightly different optimization function. Don’t over communicate, communicate just the right amount. Anticipate questions. Don’t create any friction for them and be really helpful. Some of my people will anticipate things and be proactive. I love that and I constantly push to get them promoted.
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#128This post has some big gaps. Who is this for? When is it relevant? The opposite advice is essentially addressed in Being Glue by Tanya Reilly^. If you do a job that your management chain is not measuring, you won't be rewarded for it. Excerpting: > But sometimes a team ends up someone who isn't senior, but who happens to be good at this stuff. Someone who acts senior before they're senior. This kind of work makes the…
Reading the original post, I also felt it was kind of missing exactly that: when this advice would not actually apply?
The linked article here aligns very well with some of my thoughts. Esp in the example described I would say that, if you find yourself filling too many or too big gaps, maybe think why these gaps exist there in the first place. You may just so happen to fill a void that nobody actually cares much about getting it filled (or is able to get it filled), even if it is work that needs to be done to get projects running, even if people recognize that, even if it actually brings results. Sometimes some may not really understand what brings the results, even if everybody likes results in the end.
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#129My advice is a little different. It’s make the life of your boss insanely easy. Similar in nature to post but slightly different optimization function. Don’t over communicate, communicate just the right amount. Anticipate questions. Don’t create any friction for them and be really helpful. Some of my people will anticipate things and be proactive. I love that and I constantly push to get them promoted.
Ive adopted this mindset recently and it really does work. That being said i feel it turns me into a bit of a “yes man”. I wish there was more room for more of my authentic personality
Re: Try to take my position: The best promotion advice I ever got
#130Taking on extra responsibility is all well and good until someone figures out that they can just get you to do more work for the same amount of money. At that point your only option is to move on, because if you stop performing at the "expected" level due to lack of reciprocation, suddenly you have "performance issues".
The second secret to getting promoted is working at a company that's growing. If you're at a 50 employee company that grows to 250 employees there will be many empty team leader positions. And what you lack in hands-on management experience you make up for in knowledge of the business, its products/processes, and being a reliable known quantity. That extra responsibility will turn into more money fast . On the other…
> The second secret to getting promoted is working at a company that's growing
I would say this is the #1 most important factor.
If a company isn’t growing, you’re relying on attrition to move up.
90% of the people I know who moved up to senior positions rapidly all worked at fast growing companies.