Why You Need a Strategy for Career Promotion

Throughout my career placing professionals across organizational levels, I've observed a counterintuitive pattern: the most productive employees often experience slower advancement than their more strategically visible counterparts.   This disconnect occurs because organizations promote based on perceived value rather than task completion volume.   The Visibility Gap: Most daily work remains invisible to decision-makers who determine advancement opportunities. Being exceptionally busy often signals poor prioritization rather than exceptional value.   Strategic Positioning Over Task Execution: Advancement requires demonstrating impact on organizational priorities rather than individual productivity metrics.   Cross-Functional Relationship Building: Promotion decisions often involve input from multiple stakeholders beyond immediate supervisors, making broader organizational visibility crucial.   Solution-Oriented Communication: Contributing meaningfully to strategic discussions and problem-solving initiatives creates more advancement opportunities than silent execution of assigned tasks.   The professionals who advance most rapidly understand that career growth requires intentional visibility management alongside excellent performance.   This doesn't diminish the importance of quality work, but recognizes that career advancement operates on different metrics than productivity optimization.   For those feeling stuck despite strong performance, the solution often lies in shifting focus from task completion to strategic contribution and ensuring that value creation is visible to advancement decision-makers.   What strategies have you found most effective for translating excellent work into career advancement opportunities?   Sign up to my newsletter for more corporate insights and truths here: https://lnkd.in/ei_uQjju   #deepalivyas #eliterecruiter #recruiter #recruitment #jobsearch #corporate #promotion #promotions #careeradvancement #careerstrategist

3 insights from $500K in raises my clients landed: 1) Consistency beats overwork every time. Many professionals think promotions are about doing more. But constant overwork creates burnout—not growth. The real key is finding what drives impact in your role: → 1 leadership skill to master → 1 key project to own → 1 strategic outcome to deliver When you focus on these for 12 months, results compound. Because promotions don’t happen from doing everything. They happen when you make a clear, visible impact. Stop spreading yourself thin. Commit to the actions that move the needle. 2) Clarity beats comparison. Too many professionals derail their growth by comparing themselves to peers. It creates second-guessing: → “Am I as good as they are?” → “Do I need to be doing what they’re doing?” The truth: executives aren’t promoted for imitating others. They succeed by owning their unique strengths: → Showing how they solve high-level problems. → Aligning their results with company goals. → Communicating their value clearly and confidently. When you focus on your own lane, you stand out. Not because you do everything better—but because you do it your way. That’s what leaders notice. 3) Strategy beats hard work. Working harder without a plan doesn’t lead to promotions. Doing your job well is important—but it’s not enough. Executives create opportunities through: → Building strong relationships with sponsors and advocates. → Establishing executive presence through strategic communication. → Connecting their results to company success. Waiting in line for recognition rarely works. Leaders notice those who create impact AND ensure others see it. That’s how you position yourself for the next step. Because if you don’t design your own career plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. *** 50,000+ professionals read my weekly playbooks to accelerate their path to VP Get instant access: https://lnkd.in/gkW-XAer

"Just work hard and you'll get noticed" might be the worst career advice ever given. I believed it until I saw the reality when the curtain was drawn back when I entered HR. Time after time, I witnessed the same scenario unfold. The #1 department performer would focus solely on working harder than others and delivering high-quality work, assuming it would naturally lead to recognition and promotion (that was me). But the person who did get the promotion? Often, it was the #2 performer who was actively communicating with their manager about their desire to move up. While the top performer worked in silence, the #2 performer was: →Volunteering for additional projects →Asking for feedback from the boss and acting on it →Making their development goals visible to leadership →Having regular conversations about career aspirations The result? The #1 performer was passed over for promotions, while the more visible #2 performer advanced. Once I understood the game, I played it with good results. Diana Alt and I also covered in my recent podcast appearance on her Work Should Feel Good podcast: →Interview red flags that both candidates miss →How to identify your motivating vs. burnout skills →Redefining career success beyond traditional metrics →Leveraging your natural strengths for career changes →The four pillars of finding work that fits (YouMap® method) It was a great conversation. Take a listen. The link to the full podcast is in the comments section. ---------- 💜 Helping mid-career professionals find clarity, build confidence, and land jobs they love. 📖 Follow me for career tips, job search strategies, and interview advice. 💌 Need support in your career journey? Reach out—I’m here to help!

💭 Someone asked me the other day: “What would you do if someone less qualified or accomplished always gets promoted or recognized before you?” In my career, there have been many moments when I felt overlooked or slighted. Early on, I chalked it up to life being unfair - or as an immigrant, I believed I simply had to work harder to prove myself. Over time, though, I came to realize that working hard alone isn’t enough. I learned that: ·        Calling attention to our achievements doesn’t have to sound boastful - it’s a skill that can be learned. ·        Volunteering often gets us noticed and enables us to broaden our network. ·        Networking and asking for help are crucially important steps to our success ·        Stating our career goals in a humble yet clear way helps our superiors chart a course for us. And proactively seek feedback, act on it, and let others see our growth. ·        Exhibiting executive presence - demonstrating thought leadership, projecting confidence and composure ,and communicating clearly and insightfully enable us to stand out. ·        We all need advocates - someone to speak up on our behalf when we are not in the room. Being humble is a virtue. But being humble and visible is is a career accelerator. 👉 What strategies have worked for you to advocate for yourself without feeling boastful? #Leadership #CareerGrowth #SelfAdvocacy #Networking #PersonalDevelopment

(I get tons of messages every week from aspiring workers on LinkedIn seeking career advice. In response, I’ll start posting, on a weekly basis, lessons from my career to help others navigate their careers)  Often, deserving employees struggle to make the case for their promotions. Promotions have always been hard, but more so in the age of efficiency, GenAI and controversies around remote work. Too many employees believe that if they do great work, promotion(s) will follow. This naive belief is right up there with “The check is in the mail” and “Santa Claus will bring you presents for Chriistmas” Candidly, the good times - the dotcom boom, the Covid-era hiring boom - created precedents that were unsustainable. The current belt-tightening requires you to be realistic but also proactive. In most companies, your manager cannot just unilaterally promote you. Your promotion will need approval from others who are already at the level you aspire to. Out of a combination of keeping the bar high and smug self-righteousness, these stakeholders will want to make sure you meet/exceed the bar they had to. Plus, there is a finite budget that has to account for existing employees, new hires and promotions. So, no matter what the company tells you, there is always, always, always a quota on how many employees can get promoted in any given cycle. Making the case for promotion is, in some ways, harder than applying for a new job. Unlike when you apply for a new job, for a promotion you need to not only make the case that you deserve the job, but also that the job itself is needed. You may have built, for example, a tool that took non-trivial amounts of effort and upskilling, but a case for promotion will require answers to some key questions: 1) Does this new tool add value to the business?  2) Will your company be able to serve more customers and/or make more money per customer because of this tool?  3) Was your contribution critical for this work to land?  4) Do you now have a special skill that will be hard to hire for if you were to quit?  5) Will there be a sustained need for your skill-set at the next level?   Rather than making the case for your promotion based on your effort, you need to make it based on demonstrable, measurable and sustainable impact. Otherwise, your case for promotion will feel like a Kevin Costner movie: takes a lot of effort to make, but the audience will lose interest.