What I Learned About Promotions
I’ve always loved working with people and I find that I’m the most inspired to work hard and grow when I’m surrounded by other people who serve as motivators for me. Virtual work has made this very difficult because I don’t have this same form of positive reinforcement and encouragement. It was during virtual work that I started thinking about my career trajectory, and promotions. I really didn’t know what I was doing, when I’d qualify for a promotion, what I needed to do to move a level up, and how any of this even worked. I decided to lean into what had always inspired me most— the people around me.
I started on this listening tour of L60s (PM I) & L61s (PM II) throughout my organization who I had either seen in meetings or worked with on one off documents, presentations, groups, etc. I basically set up 30 min blocks with each of them to ask about their career progression, experiences, impact, and how they were promoted. Before, when we were in person, we benefited from being able to see people’s natural progression and overhear what they were working on. Now, it’s on our shoulders to actually ask and reach out to people. I’m grateful I took this time because I learned very useful information & received great advice that I wanted to share here:
There are multiple promotion cycles (when managers are able to put employees up for promotion) for organizations usually and all of this is documented on calendars typically on companies’ HR websites and/or something that managers can share with their directs. Once you know these, you can figure out what months you’d be eligible for promotion and which months are the most ideal (i.e. budget could be really high in the middle of the year, but lower in the 3rd quarter) for bringing up conversations in advance with your manager/lead about if you’re ready for a promotion.
Go to your manager/lead/mentor/advocate/someone who knows your work well and ask key questions like: “How do I perform compared to other PMs/Engineers/etc. at my level?”, “What are the core job skills for this role & level and how do I measure up against them?”, “How do I build on these x core job skills?”, and “What opportunities will you give me/can I find in the future that I can take better advantage of?”
Transparency is difficult and scary but is key in these conversations. Promotions, even if you are put up for one, are not guaranteed due to external factors like budget. However, it’s helped me a lot to know where I stood so I asked my manager to let me know when he does put me up for promotion because it was important for me to know that, at the very least, I was being considered even if I didn’t get the promotion.
Keep working on your goals and investing in your growth. Visibility helped me a lot in my career and the more projects I took on and the more I spoke up to advocate for what I was working on & leaned into support from my mentors, the better my work was showcased within my organization. As a PM, this meant driving bigger initiatives, asking for more features, and for early in career engineers, I’ve seen checking in code and continuing to learn from senior peers as signs of growth.
The above helped keep me grounded and allowed me to invest energy in areas where I had control over my career. At the end of the day, there was so much out of my hands that really focusing on this advice made me feel much more secure in where I was going. The piece of advice that really changed it for me was being told that I needed to believe that I deserved a promotion. I had been telling myself that I didn’t deserve these opportunities because I wasn’t working hard enough or I had messed up and failed to deliver on projects, but I had to learn to put more confidence in myself. I still wavered during some promotion conversations with my manager, but I tried my best to recall and project this piece of advice internally. I had to believe I deserved this promotion and new opportunities to show my manager and leads that I was ready for this next step.
It’s difficult & can be draining, but I learned that staying persistent and advocating for yourself is a key skill even if its effects are not immediate.
