Getting promoted is a common goal for many, but unless you've been in a management role there's usually not a lot of clarity around the process. So today, we're going to talk about what a promotion is and isn't, what you need to get one, and a peek behind the curtain at how it happens.
🤔 What counts as a promotion?
A promotion is a combination of a larger job title, an increased salary, and increased responsibilities. You need all three for it to be considered a promotion.
If you just get a better job title ("title inflation" or "dry promotion") with no change to salary or responsibilities, this can be a way of the business acknowledging your contributions and seniority without the money to go with it. This isn't all bad – it can help you to demonstrate progression when looking for your next job – but generally isn't something you should be going after.
If you get a salary bump without the title or responsibilities, you are meeting expectations or exceeding to a certain extent. Many companies will do this based on a percentage of your salary and will have standard increase amounts, and some companies will tie it to performance. You should be expecting a 3-5% increase in salary annually as long as you're meeting expectations, and sometimes higher/more frequently if you're performing very well.
And if you get additional responsibilities without the title or salary, you'll need to consider if this is fair or not. Sometimes this is the business taking advantage of you, and you should ask for compensation changes accordingly. But there are circumstances where this is acceptable/positive, so reflect on the following:
Are you actively vying for a promotion? Is your manager trying to help you get there?
Is it temporary? Are you down a team member for a bit, or is someone going on leave?
Are the responsibilities reasonable? Are they significant changes to your workload, or relatively small?
Are the new responsibilities in line with your goals around growth?
🤩 How good do you need to be to get promoted?
You typically need to be consistently performing at the level above yours to be considered for a promotion.
It does feel unfair – doing the work of someone more senior for no extra money! – but this is because of the additional responsibilities and expectations part of the promotion. Even if you are doing really well at your current role, maybe if you got promoted now you wouldn't meet the new expectations. You're not going to be promoted just to go straight into performance management.
Another way to consider this is through hiring: you wouldn't hire somebody who isn't senior yet for a senior role, so why would you be promoted to it?
🗓️ How frequently should I be getting promoted?
This changes for everyone based on your own skills, the environment you're in, and your personal goals – not everyone will want to be promoted until they reach CEO level. But typically you could expect that the gap between promotions increases as you get more senior. For example, intern to junior might be a year, junior to mid three years, mid to senior five years, etc.
🤷♀️ How does the promotion process work?
Typically, promotions are announced in line with your company's review process – whether that's annual, quarterly, or something in between. But there's a bit more work that goes into it beforehand.
There's usually a budget for the team – it might be company-wide, by department, or by function. This would include a level of buffer for salary increases and possibly promotions or new hires. Budgets are put together at different times at different places, but what's important to know is that somebody has to have advocated in advance for budget for your promotion.
There might also be some other processes your manager/skip manager has to go through to make the case for your promotion. Rarely does your manager get to just decide how to allocate the budget; they typically have to make a case to leaders more senior than them.
(In some large companies, you might even have an interview process for a promotion. In small companies, you'll probably just be told that you've been promoted. Ask your manager or HR if you need more clarity on the process.)
These together mean that in order to get promoted, you need to have made it clear to your manager that you actively want to be promoted, and perform at the expected level for long enough that you can get ahead of this process. You will need your manager to advocate for you to decision-makers, so having frequent conversations about your performance and impact are really important.
That's it for this week! Do you have any more questions about getting promoted? Let me know by replying to this email. ✨
