How to Develop Yourself for Promotion
Get the knowledge and skills you need for your next job
Whether you call it the rat race or the daily grind of the nine to five, getting ahead in the workplace is challenging. There are crappy bosses, budget cuts, re-structures, and training freezes to contend with.
What do you do when you want to prepare for the next step up the ladder and the environment isn’t conducive to helping you?
You take control of your own destiny and prepare yourself as best you can with whatever resources are available. You start a journey of meaningful change, that’s what you do.
Why listen to me? Because I’m your friendly neighborhood Learning and Development lady, that’s why. I’ve worked in training and L&D for nearly thirty years. I’ve managed training teams, leadership programs, and all things induction and development related.
In the nineties, I was an in-house trainer for Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People course. The first two habits are engraved on my brain:
- Habit One — Be proactive
- Habit Two — Begin with the end in mind
These two habits are very relevant if you want to move up the career ladder. If you are lucky, your organization may help you come up with a career plan. If not, here is what to do:
Habit One — Be Proactive
No one is going to manage your career or development for you. Your mum and dad may be proud of your career. Your partner and boss may be supportive, but you are the one who has to be proactive.
Have a career plan, even if it is only for the next role. Do everything you can to prepare yourself for your next opportunity. Make sure you are talking about your career progression in your annual performance appraisal and one-to-one meetings with your boss.
If you don’t have one-to-one meetings, invite your boss to a meeting to discuss your future. It is unlikely that anyone will initiate the conversation with you. Don’t sit waiting to be noticed. Take control and be proactive.
“Action is the foundational key for all success.” ― Pablo Picasso.
Habit Two — Begin With the End in Mind
When looking for a new job, you need to know what that job is. Otherwise, you can fall into the trap of randomly applying for roles that don’t suit you. You might feel you are busy working on your career, but you aren’t. You must begin with the end in mind.
Sometimes the next step up the ladder is easy to define. You are in a team, and you want to be the team leader, then the manager. Other times, it’s not so easy, especially if there is no role in your team or organization to aspire to.
If you’re not sure what your next job will look like, these four things will help you decide:
- Skills and personality tests
- Position descriptions
- Talking to people who do the job
- Speaking to the hiring managers
Skills and personality tests: The most famous personality test is the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). You can take a free version of the test online and be allocated a ‘type’. I am ENFJ. You get a summary of your type and suggestions about the sort of jobs that may suit you.
Take personality tests with a pinch of salt. They are fun to do and can make you reflect, but the results depend on how you answered the questions at that moment in time. Make sure you answer the questions concerning work or in a work context. Most people behave differently at work than they do at home. Your answers need to reflect your work persona.
In his book Personality Isn’t Permanent, Dr. Benjamin Hardy puts together a good case that our personality isn’t fixed. I agree. Use any personality profiling to view your behavior on a spectrum and reflect on whether anything needs to change.
“You are not a single and narrow “type” of person. In different situations and around different people, you are different. Your personality is dynamic, flexible, and contextual. Moreover, your personality changes throughout your life, far more than you can presently imagine.” ― Benjamin Hardy, Personality Isn’t Permanent: Break Free from Self-Limiting Beliefs and Rewrite Your Story.
When I trained as an Insights Discovery practitioner (a personality type organization) several years ago, it was drummed into us that people could change. For example, it would serve me to dial down my extrovert personality in a corporate environment. I have to dial-up my attention to detail to do the monthly reporting.
Remember that personality tests are a tool. They are descriptive, not directive. In this situation, we are getting ideas about the sort of job that might suit your personality.
Position descriptions: If you know the role you want, ask HR for a copy of the position description. If they can’t provide one, look online for something similar.
For example, if you are looking for a team leader role in a clothing store, you would Google the following:
- Retail team leader position description
- Retail supervisor position description
- Clothing store team leader position description
Keep going until you find what you are looking for.
The contents of the position descriptions will give you a good idea of what is commonly asked for in this type of role.
Talk to people who do the job: If there are people in your organization who already do the job you want, go and talk to them. Find out what they spend their day doing. Ask what they like and what they don’t like about the role. Their answers will give you an idea of what the position is like on a day to day basis. The job may be very different from what you thought.
If you don’t know anyone in the role you are targeting, ask if your friends, family, or workmates know someone who is. Have a look on LinkedIn and send a message to someone who does the job and offer to take them for a coffee or ask if you can call or email them with your questions.
Talking to the hiring managers: Another avenue of inquiry is to talk to the hiring managers and ask them what the role involves. Again, if there is no-one in your organization who can help, try to find someone who can answer your questions via your network or LinkedIn.
Define the gap
From all your research, you should know what your next job entails from the position descriptions. You can assess whether you are likely to get an interview.
Developing yourself is about bridging the knowledge and skills gap between where you are now and where you need to be to succeed during an interview.
“Your earning ability today is largely dependent upon your knowledge, skill and your ability to combine that knowledge and skill in such a way that you contribute value for which customers are going to pay.” — Brian Tracy.
Knowledge is knowing how to do something, skill is being able to do it in real life to a certain standard.
Several years ago, the tap in my kitchen was leaking. Obviously, I did what most single women do, and I ignored it and hoped it would go away. It got worse. I knew what I had to do to change the washer because I’d been to a Ladies DIY night at my local Mitre-10 store with my friend (I arranged the outing, but she won the 40 inch TV — I’ve never forgiven her). To make sure I remembered correctly, I did a few online searches and watched a YouTube video. I had the knowledge I needed to change the washer in the tap.
I tried to dismantle the tap (yes, I turned off the water at the mains first), but it was stuck. More YouTube videos showed that even big strong men have trouble with taking taps apart, if they haven’t been dismantled in years. I gave in and called a plumber. He had a lot of trouble getting the tap off and found that it had been cobbled together out of two different fixtures, and I needed a whole new unit.
I had the knowledge, but I didn’t have the skill to know whether to force the tap or not, which way to turn it, how stiff is usual. I also didn’t have the tools, and if I had them, I wouldn’t have used them correctly. If I had succeeded in getting the tap apart, I didn’t have the experience to spot the hybrid tap.
Your task now is to list all the knowledge and skills that you need to acquire to make you the right candidate when you apply for your chosen job.
Don’t get hung up on whether what you need is knowledge or a skill. No one is going to test you on that in the interview. Just concentrate on what you need to know and make you ready to apply for your next role.
“No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.” ― L. Frank Baum, The Lost Princess of Oz
Knowledge: Once you know what knowledge you need to acquire, work out how you can get it.
For example, a position description may say that the incumbent must have an excellent working knowledge of:
- The industry (transport or retail)
- The organization
- Relevant legislation, e.g., Health and Safety Legislation
Sources of knowledge are:
- Google, YouTube, Medium — read everything you can get your hands on
- LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter — look for industry groups to join
- Professional organizations — look at their websites, go to their events
- Books — from the library, Amazon, Book Depository or on Kindle
- Free online courses — Coursera, edx, Kahn academy, Udemy
- LinkedIn learning or other paid online courses
- Legislative bodies
- Your colleagues and the company intranet and website — for organizational knowledge
If you spend thirty minutes a day improving your knowledge, you will soon learn a lot.
Skills: If you know what skills are required for the role, work out how to get them.
The position may say the incumbent has to:
- Use industry systems or computer programs
- Use Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Access
- Deal with stakeholders and customers
- Run projects
- Lead meetings
How to acquire the skills:
You can find information about the skills you need as described in the knowledge section above. You also need to be able to apply that knowledge or have the skill to use the computer program.
Attaining some of these skills will be easier than others. For example, if you can afford it you can get office 360 and learn Word & Excel. But you are unlikely to be able to get hold of an industry-specific program.
This is where you need to talk to your manager and ask if you can be trained in the areas you are focusing on. For example, you could ask if you could lead some team meetings as part of your development. The knowledge around how to lead a meeting can be obtained online. You just need the practice — the same with getting more experience with stakeholders and project management or whatever skills you want to develop.
If your organization has a mentoring program, ask if you are eligible. If not, ask if you can have an informal mentor. This just means that someone who has the skills you want will meet up with you every so often and teach you. As long as you have a clear outcome that you share with your mentor, it can be as easy as that.
It may be that you cannot learn these skills hands-on from your workplace. In that case, consider whether you could get the experience outside of work. Do you belong to a sports or social club where you could lead a meeting, deal with stakeholders or manage a project?
Could you volunteer to be on the PTA or the Board at your child’s school? Or offer your services to a volunteer organization in return for training in a specific area?
Now you know what you must do, make sure you use SMART goal setting to help you get there.
SMART Goals are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable/Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
Final thoughts
If you work for a great company that helps you to plan your career, you are fortunate. Most organizations don’t do this, and you are more or less on your own.
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” ― Stephen R. Covey.
It’s your life, your career and you make of it what you will:
- Work out what job you want
- Find out what knowledge, skills, and experience are required
- Plan how to to get the knowledge, skills, and experience you need
- Put your plan into action
If your plan changes as you progress, that’s OK too.
Now you can apply for the role you want knowing you have the relevant knowledge and skills that the interviewers are looking for.
Good Luck!
I write about leadership & training, and I’ve designed The New Leader’s Starter Kit to help leaders better communicate with their teams. Get your free copy here.
The New Leader’s Starter Kit takes you through how to run One-to-Ones and Constructive Feedback sessions & develop effective listening skills — a printable one-to-one form, feedback form and listening skills checklist included.
