Excerpt: The thing that surprised me the most during my promotion process, was when my manager asked me to write my own promotion document.
Crafting My Path to Promotion: The Surprising Experience of Writing My Own Promotion Document
The thing that surprised me the most during my promotion process, was when my manager asked me to write my own promotion document. I thought that since my manager would be presenting the document he would also be writing it, taking as input my brag document. However, it is apparently somewhat common to have the employee write the document themselves, kind of like when you write your own reference letter but your professor signs it.
As I was writing my document, I realized it made sense for me to be one writing it as I had the most context on my work and was able to provide examples to support my case for the promotion.
This does not mean my manager just sat there waiting for the document, we worked together. He actively provided feedback, modified the document as needed and reviewed it with other managers to ensure it was ready. If he hadn't done this, I don’t know what the outcome would have been.
Overall, this was a pleasant surprise. I learned how to write a document that was compelling enough to convince other managers and engineers that I deserved a promotion.
Showcasing Success: Why Numbers Matter More Than Words
Compare these two sentences:
- This feature solves problem X.
- This feature reduces Y by 20% therefore solving problem X.
Without even knowing what Y and X are in this sentence, the second one has me intrigued. This is a technique I’ve started applying to every document I write at work, not just promotion documents. A few numbers and the boring sentence I would have normally glossed over now makes me intrigued as to what this feature is. What’s really going on is that I am quantifying the impact of this feature, which makes the benefits more tangible and compelling, even before the details of the feature are explained.
The Promotability Plan: How I Realized That Planning Is the Key to Career Advancement
This being my first full-time role after graduating, I had a lot to ramp up on at work. . New programming languages, new expectations, new stack and more. Because of this, I did not believe planning for my promotion was a priority when I was just trying to stay afloat. What I would work on for future promotions or career growth is planning, tracking and visibility.
Looking forward, I am building a plan for the type of work I do. Depending on my goals, I may want to design a brand new feature or take on a project with High Impact such as operational improvements. I still haven’t identified a clear strategy on how to plan projects and goals yet but I can see that this will be important especially since I do want to become a senior engineer some day. Beyond just planning, as I continue to work on more projects, tracking my work will be important.
For my past promotion, I wrote a “brag document” which highlighted all the projects that I completed or contributed too. The more detailed this document the better. Our goal is to document everything so that when we are writing that promotion document we can select our best stories to highlight how we went above and beyond to solve difficult challenges. The mistake that I made was starting this document too late. I would start this on day 1. I would also start planning for visibility from day 1.
Visibility to me means having your work be known so that when you are not in the room your work is still spoken about. What I mean is if I build a new shiny tool but no one is using it, it probably means I failed to make it visible and this results in Engineers not having the best tool for a specific job. That’s just one example, but visibility could also mean sending project updates or following up on your work to get feedback. It’s about ensuring everyone is aware of the great work you are putting out there so that it is being used to solve real problems.