So, you want a promotion but you want to ask in the best way—I get that.
While you might hope for senior management to pick up on your hard without you having to step in, you often need to be your own advocate, to step up and ask for what you deserve.
But, to do that in the best way, it’s about a lot more than just popping the question. Asking for a promotion also involves being able to prove the value you’d bring to the business if you were in that role and paint a detailed picture of why you’re the best fit.
Here are six tried-and-tested steps that are guaranteed to help you prepare for and ask for your promotion in the best way possible.
1. Reflect on What You Want From the Promotion
Firstly, if you want to ask for a promotion, you need to be crystal clear on what you want to get from it.
For example, are you looking for more responsibility, more money, more decision-making power—or all of the above?
Do you want to move up the ladder and into a more senior or managerial role or do you want to move laterally into another department?
“If you want to ask for a promotion, you need to be crystal clear on what you want to get from it.”
Does the role you want currently exist at your company or are you looking to create a new position?
It’s important that you’re clear on your answers to these questions before you ask for a promotion. That way, you can more accurately ask for what you want and be able to more deeply consider any counter offers that perhaps weren’t quite what you were looking for.
2. Do Your Research on the Role You Want
Before you ask for a promotion, you first need to know what you’re getting yourself in for.
This is not only to make sure you’re making the right career decision, but also so you can better explain to senior management why you’re the right fit for the job and how you would carry out its key responsibilities.
If the role already exists at your business, consider setting up a meeting with someone who’s currently in that role to ask them about their key responsibilities, what their day-to-day role looks like and whether they have any useful tips.
If the role doesn’t already exist in your business, you can find someone on Linkedin who works in a similar industry and ask them if they’d be willing to chat about their role. More often than not, people are more than happy to help.
Outside of chatting with people who are already in the role you want, you could also find advertisements for similar roles and study their job descriptions to get an idea of key skills and responsibilities.
3. Speak to Others Who Got Promoted
If you’re looking a for tried-and-tested way to get promoted, then who better to ask than someone who’s already done it?
If you can, it’s worth setting up a chat with someone in your company who’s asked for a promotion in the past and achieved it. Ideally, they’ll be at a level of seniority that’s similar to the level you’d like to be at.
If they agree to the meeting, use that time to find out:
- What they did to prepare to ask for their promotion
- What specific challenges they faced and how they overcame them
- How they built their business case
- Whether there were any strategies that they found particularly effective during the process
If you can emulate what this person did to get promoted, you’ll have a much greater chance of success—because, well, it’s already worked before.
4. Ask Your Peers for Feedback
Your promotion won’t always depend on what senior management thinks of you and your performance—they’ll likely also take into account your reputation amongst your peers.
Which is why it’s often a good idea to ask not only your managers and senior members for continuous feedback on your performance but also your immediate teams and workmates.
Be sure to ask what they think of you as a leader, whether they think you’re ready for a promotion and for general feedback on how you can improve your work performance.
This will not only help guide you on how to improve but also show your peers that you’re willing to work on your development and become a better colleague.
5. Build a Strong Case for Your Promotion
Companies tend not to give promotions away for free. They need to see that there’s a real business benefit to promoting an employee and that they’ll get a great return on their investment.
So, before you ask for your promotion, you should bring together everything you’ve researched and learned to build a strong business case that demonstrates the value for your company. This might include:
- Value that you currently add for the business, including work achievements, unique skillsets and additional responsibilities you take on outside of your role (specific statistics like how many clients you’ve won or how much revene you’ve generated are particularly powerful here)
- Value that you could add if you were promoted, including skillets you can bring to the table, specific plans you have for improving processes and productivity and what you’d look like in that role
- Any problems that your promotion will help solve, including filling skills gaps, reducing workloads or saving on costs
- How you’d handle the key responsibilities of the role, including examples of how you’d handle specific scenarios (the key is to demonstrate a strong understanding of what would be expected of you in this role and that you can confidently meet these expectations)
- Professional certifications and qualifications you’ve got under your belt or are currently working towards to help you upskill for your promotion (If you’re looking for a great resource for this, check out our new Identifi Learning and Development platform, which offers more than 200 industry-recognised courses and qualifications)
Be sure to anticipate any concerns or objections that senior management might have about your case and come up with ways to reassure them. Consider feedback from your peers as well as your weaknesses and how you plan to work on them.
Once you have your business case, all you need to do now is ask!
6. Time It Right
As a final piece of advice, while there’s no “perfect” time to ask for a promotion, paying attention to timing can work in your favour.
For example, if your company is experiencing a particularly difficult financial quarter, has just lost a big account or recently announced a round of layoffs, it’s probably not the right time to ask.
But if you ask for a promotion when your company is performing well financially and is looking to grow, on the other hand, management will be far more likely to consider your request.
“It’s also worth trying to time your request for when you’ve had a particularly glowing performance review.”
It’s also worth trying to time your request for when you’ve had a particularly glowing performance review or achieved a particular success for the company—for example, if you’ve just won a huge account.
Lastly, a great time to ask for a promotion is if you see a major gap in your workforce. For example, workload has significantly increased and there aren’t enough people in senior positions to get it all done, or perhaps someone has just left unexpectedly. Stepping up during these moments can make senior management a lot more likely to consider you.
Level Up Your Career With Expert Advice
If you’ve made it to here, there’s just one last thing to say: Good luck!
Promotions can be complicated and drawn-out processes with lots of people involved—but by taking the steps we’ve outlined above, you’ll be in the best position when you’re ready to ask.
For more expert tips and advice on getting noticed by senior management, negotiating a higher salary and levelling up your career, take a look at our blog here.
