Want a Promotion?

By Soozy G. Miller, CPRW, CDCC, CDP

True stories.

A manager was interested in a promotion that opened up at her company. She thought she was right for the job and applied internally for it.

When she didn’t get the promotion, she was upset and disappointed. So she contacted a career coach to discuss it.

“I deserved that position,” she complained. “I earned it. I should have gotten it.”

“I understand,” said the coach. “Why do you deserve it?”

“Because I work hard and I’ve done so much for the company,” she replied.

“Oh!” said the coach, “That’s good! Tell me three things that you’ve accomplished for the company.”

She couldn’t name any.

Yet she still expected to be noticed and promoted.

If you do your job and go home—if you simply fulfill your job requirements and no more—your boss or other leadership will see you as the average worker and probably won’t notice you or consider you for other roles. The company is investing in you by paying you a salary, and with that comes expectations—that you will get the job done, of course, but more importantly that you will create benefits for the company. They hope that you will leave the company better than when you arrived. Whether you’re in leadership or not.

For example, if you’re an event planner and you planned an event, then you did your job. It is irrelevant to the hiring company how hard you worked to make that event a success. In fact, your hard work is expected, not an accomplishment. You simply fulfilled your job requirement. You probably won’t get attention for that from the boss.

However, if your budget was halved or half your staff quit or some natural disaster happened (like a tree fell on the venue roof) and the event made the same amount of money—or better yet, made more money than the previous event—despite the obstacles, then that is an achievement.

I once coached an executive event planner who had a very difficult time explaining why her work mattered. Whenever I asked her about how her work affected others or made a difference, she had a difficult time articulating. She always answered me with some task she had completed.

For example:

“The event in the spring brought in about $85K in donations,” she said.

“That’s excellent. How did you help with that?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” she replied. “I planned it.”

“Yes,” I said, “But was there something that you did to facilitate the larger donations?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Was there some special idea that you came up with during the planning of the event that caused people to donate more, thus achieving the $85K?”

“Not during the event, but after the event, yes.”

“Okay, tell me about that.”

“Oh well, I hired a graphic designer and a calligrapher to design special thank you notes. You know, ‘Thank you for attending.’”

See what I mean?

With a little bit of help she was able to demonstrate one very specific way that she brought value.

Another time I worked with a finance director who was obviously very successful. His resume was difficult to read, but even with the bad formatting and the disorganized content I could tell that he was a very accomplished man. I saw that he was originally hired to run one division and was so successful that he was then given two more divisions to run. Very impressive.

But when I asked him to give me details about his successes, he couldn’t explain anything. He kept saying, “This stuff is very complicated! My job is complicated! I work hard!”

I pointed out to him that he was not the only finance director out there and that if he wanted to land a job—he wanted a better, higher-paying job with fewer hours—he was going to have to be able to detail his accomplishments. And if he couldn’t explain his success to me—the coach who let him try and fail and try again until he got it—he wasn’t going to do very well during interviews.

Are you eyeing that promotion? Do you think that you deserve a better job with better hours and better pay? Then get ready to detail your value-add and how your expertise has benefitted companies and organizations.

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Better job. More pay. More control.

For a free resume review, please contact us at Control Your Career!