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Securing a Promotion

If you have decided you want to push your career forward and look for a promotion then this article will help you put measures in place to ensure your success and to enable you to think strategically about how to start the process.

If you want to secure a promotion, you need to seek it out actively. You need to tell your managers that this is what you are working towards. You need to identify who the key stakeholders are, who will make the decision and what their expectations are. You need to be acting and behaving like the level above you already.

It is important to think about the impact a promotion will have on your work life balance. If you are a working parent, what will it mean in demands on your time and increases in stress levels. You need to be sure that what you would be sacrificing to put in the extra effort and reflect on whether it is worth it for you personally.

Tips for success:

1. Make sure the decision makers know you want promotion. Tell them early on.

2. Be proactive and gather the evidence – create a clear business case.

3. Ask others for their advice on how to progress your career. Asking for advice is a great way of networking – people are usually flattered to be asked.

4. Be clear and set out goals for your career

5. Think creatively about which projects you can get involved in which will raise your profile

6. Know what operating at the next level up looks like. Comare it to your current performance and identify any potential gaps

7. Recognise what active ities are curcial to success in your role and corporate culture and which tasks are self imposed.

8. Review how you work and what you do and don’t enjoy.

9. Put in place a plan around your goals and how you will achieve them

Questions to consider:

• Who needs to know you want a promotion?

• Whose support do you need to secure a promotion?

• If you were now at the level above, what would you be doing differently from what you are doing now?

• What evidence (eg facts, figures, behaviours, feedback, KPIs...) can you give to prove you have reached the required level?

Talking Talent is an innovative coaching and consulting company helping their clients attract, retain and maximise the potential of their talented workforce with a focus on talented women. They run a variety of coaching packages:

• Organisational Coaching – Talking Talent is at the heart of innovation in organisational policy and practive around feale talent attraction, retention and optimisation. That’s why some of the worlds leading institutions choose them to develop competitive advantage through their talented women
• Manager and Talent Development – they run a range of manager and talent development programmes, both in-house and as open programmes
• Executive Coaching for Women – their range of high impact coaching packages increases retention of talented women and helps them realise their full potential
• Maternity Coaching – Talking Talent provides a range of highly flexible coaching packages for talented women making the transition through maternity and return to work.

Visit their website for further details www.talking-talent.com and for information on their latest book – Top Tips for Talented Working Parents.