✦Career · 12 recordsGet promoted

Promotions are decided on a written case by people who did not watch you do the work. So this runs two projects: doing the job a level up, and recording it as you go — because reconstructing a year of evidence the week before a review is where most good cases fall apart.

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✦ Everything it creates

The whole plan, before you install it

Goal

Make the case and be promoted Month 6

Working at the next level for long enough that the case writes itself.

Do the job a level up Month 5

The work itself, chosen deliberately rather than whatever arrives.

  • Write down what the next level is actually measured onDo firstDay 3
  • Agree one stretch piece of work with my managerDo firstDay 10
  • Take on something nobody currently ownsWeek 6

Build the evidence Month 6

Written down as it happens, not reconstructed in review week.

  • Start a running record of outcomes with numbers in themDo firstDay 5
  • Ask two colleagues what they would say about my workMonth 2
  • Draft the case and send it to my manager earlyMonth 5

Routines

  • Record what I did this weekweekly
  • Ask for feedback on one thingweekly
✦ It comes with a note

Evidence beats memory

Promotions are decided from a written case by people who did not watch the work happen. The record is therefore half the job, and it is the half that feels least like progress.\n\nWrite outcomes down within a week of them happening, with numbers and names. Reconstructing a year in review week is where good cases become vague ones.

✦ Questions

Get promoted, answered.

Two cycles out, not one. Most promotion decisions look for a sustained period of working at the next level, so starting three months before a review usually produces a case that reads as a sprint rather than a standard.
Because it is the half that gets skipped. Doing the work feels productive and writing it down does not, so it goes in its own project with its own routine, and stays visible when the delivery work is busy.
Specific outcomes with numbers and names attached, written down close to when they happened. A line saying what changed, by how much, and who noticed is worth more than a paragraph of responsibilities written from memory a year later.
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