How To Get Promoted at Work: 9 Effective Strategies

Earning a promotion enables you to assume a more important role in your company, earn a higher salary and gain a heightened sense of accomplishment. To effectively advance your career within your company, you will need to have excellent work performance and catch your supervisors’ attention.

While performance, experience and skills are common requirements for a job promotion in many workplaces, you can take extra measures to become a prime candidate for your desired position.

Is it better to be a specialist or a generalist?

In his new book, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein, Sports Illustrated senior writer and New York Times bestselling author, argues that the path to specialist expertise is the exception, not the rule. Drawing from interviews and studies of successful individuals in a variety of fields, Epstein shows time and time again that our greatest strength is the ability to think broadly.

Niche or Broad?

Do you want to be a Generalist or a Specialist? Not since the days of debating the Chicken and Egg have people struggled with what steps to take first in order to develop a successful career.

YouTube comments:

“People may be confused by how he means to specialize. To specialize doesn’t mean going into one thing and ignoring everything else. That actually would be pretty much impossible. Could you imagine if all typography was black and white because no one who knows typography knows good color theory? Your niche is like a tree. People are looking for that great big oak! But you need roots to support that tree. And if those roots are big and strong it can even be a selling point for the tree. Have you ever went “Wow this tree has some cool looking roots. All twisty and woven together.”

“This is really interesting. I am 100% sold on niching, I think it’s inevitable if you want to build a sustainable business. But I’ve never seen the external/internal comparison before. This should totally put to bed the concerns people have about niching down. Stay curious and try new things, but only sell the ONE thing. Use all your learnings on the stuff you do behind the scenes to make the ONE thing even better. Very inspiring!”

“I really wish I heard this advice about 25 years ago when I finished my first degree in engineering. I was too afraid to specialize further and I ended up generalizing more. Asa result, my degree ended up failing to produce meaningful results. I would have also had time to spend on other interests. So I’m middle age now, doesn’t mean I can’t apply this information now. I always thought keeping my options open was a good idea and to some degree it is but there’s a point where you have to put limits on it. I had no limits. There’s a Russian proverb, ‘Chase two rabbits and you’ll go hungry.'”

How to advance in a company

A small percentage of people in this world are lucky enough to be born rich. Even fewer manage to hit the lottery or somehow fall into large sums of cash. Generally speaking, the rest of us have to rely on good old-fashioned hard work if we want to get ahead. Unfortunately, not everyone who works hard will be rewarded for it. In addition to being dedicated and having the right skills, there are some important steps to take if you want to advance in an organization.

In your quest for professional promotion, the first stop should be your human resources or staffing department. Find out everything you can about the culture and values of your organization, so you can be sure you’re towing the company line. Equally important as you step onto the corporate ladder is having a strong sense of your own abilities and what you want to achieve.

5 Types of Bullsh*t Jobs

David Rolfe Graeber (1961 – 2020) was an American anthropologist and anarchist activist. His influential work in economic anthropology, particularly his books Debt: The First 5,000 Years(2011) and Bullshit Jobs (2018), and his leading role in the Occupy movement, earned him recognition as one of the foremost anthropologists and left-wing thinkers of his time.

10 best companies to work for if you want to advance

If you’re currently on the market for a job and looking for a role you can grow in, some companies may be better at cultivating their employeesthan others.

Data research company the Burning Glass Institute recently partnered with Harvard Business School and the Schultz Family Foundation to rank the 250 biggest U.S. public companies in terms of their investment in their workforce, a report entitled the American Opportunity Index.

“The index is designed to measure companies based upon the level of opportunity they create for their workers,” says Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute, adding that, “we are specifically focusing on the roles at the Fortune 250 that are open to people without a college degree.”

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