8 Steps to Improve Your Chances for Advancement

March 17, 2010

As with luck, a promotion isn't something that just happens; it results from careful planning along the way.  It can also require sacrifices from your family, social life and resources that you need to analyze the value in return.  You can figure out what it will take for you to get ahead by following these 8 steps outlined by Sam Deep & Lyle Sussman from their book, Yes, You Can!

1. "Early in your career ask your boss to help you create a career map that lays out possible routes through the hierarchy.  The plan should include the "dues" you must pay in the form of time in grade, professional development, and performance standards.  Upgrade the map yearly.
2. Latch on to a mentor-who may or may not be your boss.  Write down your career goals, and ask your mentor for advice on how to attain them.
3. Don't push so hard that your salary get to far out of line for someone in your position.  Top management may find it too costly to promote (or retain) you.
4. Study the routes that others ahead of you have taken to the top.  Emulate them.
5. Remain alert to new openings.  Don't depend on your boss, who may be afraid to lose you.  Ask for support in your bids for available positions that might help you advance.
6. Without becoming a nuisance or running the risk of being seen as overly ambitious, remind your boss periodically of your interest in upward mobility.
7. Be friendly and helpful to people in positions to which you aspire.  They may be asked to recommend a replacement for themselves someday.
8. Establish a reputation outside your company as an expert.  This may get you a terrific job offer, and your boss may then see the need to retain you by offering you a promotion."

"Advancement only comes with habitually doing more than you are asked."
--Gary Ryan Blair

"Today knowledge has power.  It controls access to opportunity and advancement."
--Peter F. Drucker

"No matter what you do, no matter how stupid, dumb or damaging you judge it to be, there is a lesson to be learned from it.  No matter what happens to you, no matter how unfair, inequitable or wrong, there's something you can take from the situation and use for your advancement."
--Peter McWilliams

Have a GREAT Day advancing in your career!