By Evan Vitale
In the event something unplanned happens in your personal life or within your personal finances, you may want to think twice about hitting up your manager for a promotion. Your request for promotion should be a thoughtful event and not used for emergency cash management.
In pursuing your campaign for a promotion, and talking about your objectives together with your supervisor, such a conversation can easily work to your benefit when done correctly. Remember a pay upgrade can cause change and add additional responsibilities and work processes to perhaps an already hectic work day. So be careful what you wish for so as to ensure your work life balance will remain positive.
Normally promotions happen as a result of a recent position opening. So, the very first thing you’ll need to do on regularly if you wish to be promoted would be to keep in good contact with the company’s employment board or the HR office. If a position opening is about to become open or has been open for a while, you’ll wish to make certain that your interest in a position is known to your manager and any other political players that would have an additional say in perhaps approving the transition. Missing your opportunity because of a delay in communicating can sabotage your chances.
Getting a lead for an opening that would mean a promotion for you is the first step. Once you have re-examined your desire for the position (make sure you really want the job), then contact the person responsible about the specifics and qualifications for the position.
Seniority may be a critical factor as to whether you will be a good fit for a promotion to the position. Recent company hires should not pursue promotions too quickly unless they are absolutely excelling in their current work or were perhaps overqualified when they started. Being a new hire doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ask for a promotion. It is good to get in the habit of asking (but not too frequently) if your personal goal is to indeed work your way up the company ladder.
Usually organizations prefer to promote internally from within the pool of candidates who have a good work record over a long period. Your long range career goals you may have mentioned during initial hiring may also be considered as managers generally remember what you said you wanted to do at hire. You can change your goals, but be genuine with your team what it is you want to do. Obvious money grabs will be transparent to co-workers who see you day in and day out.
Meeting long term career goals will require that you pay your dues by putting in the time and gaining experience within a variety of projects. It’s always best to try to get consistent experience within a current company than trying to job hop to a different company to gain experience with the hope of being rehired for a dream job back at the first company. Too many job hops for gaining experience can sometimes make you appear unreliable. As long as the company is a healthy one, try to work within a system you are in to demonstrate your agility, commitment and loyalty. It will make you more valuable as an employee in the marketplace.
When you start looking at the position opening you wish to go for, make sure you evaluate the actual position. Have you done your research? Who was in the position before? Why did they leave? Can they still be contacted? And if not, why not? If at all possible, get as many details as you can. Has the position had many different people in it making for a chaotic team?
Once you have done your due diligence, and if everything seems positive, then set up an appointment discuss the opportunity with your current boss or other managers. When you talk about moving into the promotion, make sure you are confident in yourself, your ability to do the new position and that it is all in alignment with your long term career goals.
