Navigating Career Growth
This is continuously a hot topic I hear, among the people I coach - how do I navigate my career so I can receive a promotion?
My hope is that you can immediately apply these tips into your current situation and see impactful positive results.
Have a deep understanding of what success looks like in your current role. You should have a clear understanding of the key performance indicators (KPI’s) or quantifiable metrics to determine how you’re performing in role relative to expectations. These could be sales targets, grading metric in quarterly reviews, etc. Before you will be ready for a promotion, you must be able to articulate in a tangible way, how you’ve mastered the role you’re currently in. This will also help you understand why others may be getting promoted and what you can do to follow suit.
Identify key stakeholders who have authority and influence to make decisions that impact your goals. Let’s say for example you are a Business Development Representative (BDR) and you want to become an Account Manager (AM). Have you mentioned your interest in becoming an AM to not only your manager, but the manager who oversees the AM team? Don’t assume anyone will guess your desires/goals - make it clearly known to the hiring team. You want to become the obvious choice if/when an opportunity becomes available.
Be prepared to articulate the value you will bring to the organization/team if you were to join that role. We know this promotion will help your career trajectory, but what’s in it for the company? That may sound harsh - but it’s the truth. Understand your strengths and unique insight you bring to the table. Maybe you have past experience in an industry that the organization is looking to tap into, or you’ve had a proven track record to consistently perform at the top 10% of your team - use these as leverage to translate the value it could bring if you were to have ‘X’ promotion.
Identify potential pathways. There are many factors to consider here, just to name a few-
Does this role already exist or would I need to advocate to create a new role?
Is there potential for this role to become open in ~3/6/9+ months?
What has the historical success been of those who navigated down this path previously?
Of those who went down this path previously, what did they have in common? (If you have the opportunity to grab coffee with them and pick their brain to understand advice they would give to you, do it!)
Be patient, within reason. This goes back to #1 - be sure you have mastered the role you’re in. It’s great to be eager, but if you’re jumping into a new role before you’ve mastered the one in front of you, you’re only setting yourself up to fail. I’m not saying don’t reach for that promotion, you should absolutely work towards growth - be patient in the process of learning and building a strong foundation for future success.