Want to get promoted?

Unless you have a relative who owns the company, no one starts at the top! And getting promoted isnít a right. Once upon a time skills made the difference to employability and job laddering and hard work, loyalty, job growth and training the lever for promotability. Time was when we trusted our working life to others, yet in todayís world of work there is no longer a job for life culture.

ìEveryone in the glorious world of work now has to assume responsibility for their own career and this means being their own worklife pilot and manager all rolled into oneî advises John Lees, a leading career strategist and author of How to Get a Job Youíll Love, the UKís best selling careers book by a British author.

A survey conducted recently amongst senior and middle managers, consultants, training specialists and business owners for How to Get the Perfect Promotion by John Lees (McGraw-Hill/September 2003) asked the following questions:

1. What one key action or event can you identify as a formative step in building your career?
2. What is the best approach/strategy/activity to gain promotion?
3. What behaviours and attitudes at work get staff promoted?
4. What single piece of advice would you give to someone who wants to achieve promotion at work in the next 12 months?

The No. 1 collective response to this was ëbeing self-aware.í Moving upwards is about having an understanding of what your employer really needs and knowledge of how you are perceived by your employer.

So, moving on and upwards is about managing the ëdealí between worker and employer and managing the perceptions of key decision-makers.
Every organisation is like a pyramid;
there are more jobs at the bottom than the top.

Other factors which influence promotability include: being more aware of the needs of your organisation as a whole (the bigger picture), displaying the right behaviours and attitudes (work as if youíve already been promoted), influencing key people in the organisation (communicating your achievements), pushing the boundaries of your job (going the extra mile), having the right skills and know-how, working hard and being in the right place at the right time.

Significantly, whilst hard work and skills ARE important they are nowhere near as important as visibility and awareness.

Promotable people operate with a basic marketing principle ñ they ëfocus on the needs of the buyerí. Empty narcissistic self promotion is like unfocused selling. Itís not appropriate, unresearched and no one wants it. Skilled marketeers are determined to communicate a match between what they have to offer and what the organisation needs. Thereís no place for misplaced ego inflation. True marketing focuses on the need of the customer. Communicating your strengths within the organisation isnít just about getting promoted. Sometimes itís about keeping your job.

Promotable people are good at what they do. But being good at what you do isnít enough. You need to create visible results that are noticed by
the key decision-makers in your organisation. How indispensable are you? And how dispensable might you be when a restructuring comes along?


How to Get the Perfect Promotion, is the perfect paperback careers coach for anyone trying to build a career. Itís a tough job and weíre given very little preparation of training to help us along the way. There are more choices available to use than ever before for career enhancement. Readers will learn how to deliver KRAs (key result areas), how to avoid CLAs (career limiting actions) and how to perfect their message.

Building on many tried and tested motivational techniques first championed in best-selling How to Get a Job Youíll Love, the sequel, How to Get the Perfect Promotion delivers practical advice and techniques for reviewing the job youíve got, negotiating a pay rise, career switching, jumping ship and making your mark in a new job.

Chapters include: 1. What gets people promoted? 2. Insider information ñ how others travelled this way before you, 3. Your DIY career pilot kit, 4. What do you mean by success? 5. Solving employers problems ñ The key to promotion success, 6. Marketing yourself within the organisation, 7. Survive and thrive, 8. Cutting a great deal, 9. Upward, ever upward? 10, Stocking your lifeboat, 11. Making your mark in a new job, 12. Breaks and Switches and 13. Ten steps towards the perfect promotion.

Fact: The average working lifetime is between 80-100,000 hours.
Fact: Over 75% of our weekly energy may be focused on work ñ preparing for work, getting to work, talking about work and worrying about work.
Solution: Take active control of your working life and assume responsibility for your career plan.

How to Get the Perfection Promotion is due to be published by McGraw-Hill in September 2003, price 12.99 ISBN 0077104269