This is a conversation that terrifies most people.
How do you ask for a promotion and raise?
If you're ready to move up to the next level in your career
and you need to have this conversation with your manager, stay tuned.
Welcome back to my channel,
where I help you slay your career
and cultivate the successful life that you want.
A lot of you found me because my wheelhouse is helping you get a promotion at
work. And if you've been following for a while,
maybe you've been staging yourself so you're really ready for that promotion,
and the raise that goes with it,
and you just need to know how to actually make the ask.
That is exactly what I'm covering in this video.
It's really important that you take each of these six steps
as I actually laid them out because skipping or mis-executing on even one
of them is going to not necessarily yield you the result that you're
hoping for when you actually make that ask. If you're ready,
click that like button and let's get right into it.
The first thing that you need to do is.
You need to figure out if there is a formal process.
Especially if you're working in a really big company,
there is likely going to be set times where they do evaluations
and calibration to make sure that the right people are
at the right levels in the right roles. But not all companies have this.
Especially if you're at a smaller company, or in a quick growing startup.
But starting with this is really important.
Because if there is a formal process that you need to go through,
or set times where these evaluations are actually done,
asking for the promotion and the pay raise is not necessarily
going to be what stages you for success.
If your company doesn't have the formal process,
then you can basically breach this conversation whenever you feel is the right
time. And I'm going to help you identify that right time,
so make sure that you keep on watching. But if you're at a bigger company,
and there is set times, then you are going to need to honor it.
And maybe focus the conversation on making sure
that you're staged to get that promotion and the pay increase
that goes with it at that time. This is really crucial.
Because if you don't know what the process at all,
you're not going to be able to optimize to actually yield the result that you
want. Which is of course getting the promotion at work,
and getting a nice pay raise with it.
If you don't know where to find this information in the first place,
and find out if there is a formal process,
the easiest person to ask is actually going to be your manager.
If you're a little bit nervous to ask your manager
about the formal process before you actually have the conversation surrounding a
promotion. There's one thing that I do want to remind you.
If you're not actually having an open and candid conversation
with your boss about your career ambition,
and the fact that you're actually wanting to get a promotion,
you're not actually putting them into a position where they're going to be able
to help you get it.
Your manager is going to be the person who is best poised in terms
of giving you guidance and support in order to make
sure that you're getting to the next level.
If you haven't had the conversation with them in general
about wanting the promotion, and you're watching this video
right now because you are gearing up and
trying to figure out how you're going to do it,
make sure that you have that conversation at the earliest possible time within
the process.
It really is going to make your life so much easier.
And it is going to increase your likelihood of getting the promotion and the
increase whether you have a formal process, or you don't.
The second step is the most crucial,
and that is knowing that timing is everything.
Asking for a promotion and a pay raise at the wrong time
is going to get you dismal results.
So if your company has just posted absolutely below expectations performance,
that's probably not going to be the best time for you to
ask for the promotion and the increase. Similarly,
if you just didn't meet your KPIs,
or maybe you made a mistake that was kind of high visibility, again,
probably not going to be the best time for you to actually make that ask.
However, on the other hand, if your company is posting phenomenal results,
you just had a huge win with a project or with a client.
These are excellent times to ask.
The reason why you want a time to the positive events is
that with that sentiment you have momentum.
And you want to optimize to ride that wave to ask for your promotion and raise.
Also within this,
you want to consider the timing for the person that you're going to ask.
If you're going to have this conversation with your
manager and they are incredibly busy, incredibly stressed out,
and maybe they have some stuff going on, they seem to be in a bad mood -
That's not the time to have the conversation. Even if the meeting is scheduled,
you talk about something else in that meeting.
Or ask to speak at a different time. If your boss is in firefighting mode,
if they're in a bad mood, you are going to decrease your own likelihood of
getting that promotion and pay increase.
That is of course the opposite of what you're going for.
So making sure that you're timing for the general context of the company,
as well as the person that you will actually be making the ask to,
is incredibly important to stage yourself to actually get what you want.
Step three is one of my favorites. Bring receipt.
You want to bring as much evidence as possible about your awesomeness,
and the fact that you're already performing at that next level.
You want to be talking about your high impact project.
You want to be talking about all of the right things that
you've been overachieving on that have really driven the company's growth,
profitability and successful operation.
The mistake that a lot of people make here is
that they only bring receipts about the fact that they're
doing their current job really, really well. As much as possible,
you want to also bring evidence and a supporting argument
that you're actually performing at the level above where you are.
Especially if you work in the tech industry, which a lot of my viewers do.
There is a huge emphasis in terms of doing the job that you
actually want to have in order to get the title for it.
I've worked at several companies where we always joked
that your job title always behind what you actually do.
And by the time that you got the promotion,
you were actually doing the job of above it. And if that sounds familiar,
I would love to hear in the comments.
Think about the things that actually denote success at the next level.
Is it that you've been mentoring junior team members?
Have you been taking on bigger clients or bigger deal sizes?
Have you been navigating these things with increasing autonomy? And of course,
here you also want to showcase your high impact project
where you've shown initiative,
and you've proactively solved a problem that your team
was experiencing or improved your company in some sort of way.
One of the things that can be kind of unfair about promotions
is that they're made based on potential. And especially if you're female,
your potential is going to be gauge on what you're currently doing.
Demonstrating your potential is already actuall
there is going to be something that helps you step into that role.
Proving that you actually are already working at a higher level
than what you currently are is going to be something that actually
helps you make that step up the ladder to help you
get the promotion and the pay increase that you deserve.
Step four is really important because the first thing that
you actually want to focus on is the actual promotion and your job title.
What promotion are you asking for?
What promotion are you actually getting and what is your new job title going to
be? Of course the fact that you prepared with step three
is going to really help you have this conversation and frame your worthiness,
and the fact that the promotion is something that is just a matter
of some paperwork - because you already got it.
You want to get buy-in in terms of getting the actual promotion,
as well as the job title that goes with it.
There may be some cases where there is multiple promotion avenues,
so you also want to walk into this conversation knowing the promotion
that you're actually going for.
Are you trying to be promoted into a leadership role where you will be managing
other people? Or is it going to be say a promotion into a senior title role?
If you're an individual contributor and want to see on that path right
now before you can really have any conversation beyond,
you need to actually get the buy in. And once you get the promotion,
and once you have agreement about the actual promotion on the title,
you are going to move into the next step which is going
to be defining success within your new role.
What are the actual deliverables?
With your new promotion, what are the expectations with your new level?
Really taking the time to define success,
and really focusing on what that success means for the
company and for the team is going to be something
that not only gives you and your manager clarity in terms
of how you're going to operate day to day.
But it is going to help frame you for the last step which we'll get to in just a
moment. This step is incredibly easy to gloss over,
especially if there is an established job description and established
deliverables. Because even if there are established criteria for this new role,
and the promotion that you have hopefully just gotten,
you want to make sure that you are crystal clear in terms
of what you are going to be focusing on.
Especially as you were ramping up into this new promotion in this step.
I also love to identify where there are potentially gaps or
growing skills that we really need to focus on from a mentorship perspective,
or from a training perspective.
And it's not that you want to shine a light on the gaps that you do have.
That would be completely contrary.
But if there is anything that you need to learn to really excel in that role,
so when you have the next performance conversation
to make sure that you're achieving or exceeding on expectations,
Having that conversation here and making sure that you know
what success is at this level is extremely important.
And it is going to be that understanding of your impact
and what success is for that role and what that means for the company.
That is going to stage you for a step five,
which is going to be actually talking about the money.
This is where you were actually going to ask for the raise.
The reason why you need to go through those things
is obviously if you don't get the promotion,
and you don't get the new job title,
you're not really going to be in the best position to ask for the raise.
However, when that is actually agreed upon, it is going to be an inferred,
as well as assumed,
that there is going to be a monetary component that actually goes along with it.
However, when you do have a promotion and a change in job title,
the vast majority of people are going to operate on the assumption
that there is also going to be a pay increase that goes with it. However,
before you just jump straight into talking about the money,
understanding the actual impact and the deliverables for your new rol
on the new expectations that are upon you are going to help you
and your manager better understand the increase in value
that you're bringing into the organization within your new role up-level.
So after you have the discussion about all of the impact
that you're going to make,
and how valuable this new role is to the organization,
talking about money and getting the highest possible increase
is going to become something that is very easy.
If talking about money is something that does make you a little bit nervous,
I do have a video on negotiating your salary,
which is going to give you some helpful strategies.
Even if you are just negotiating a pay increase,
you can actually watch it right here. I have a final bonus tip,
which is to make sure that you have done everything that you can
on your part to get the highest likelihood of earning a yes.
Making sure that you're putting in the effort,
and that you have actually brought the supporting evidence,
and you've got the acknowledgement within your organization
to make sure that when you ask for this promotion and increase that you are most
likely to get it.
Ideally when you have this conversation,
you've already focused for the last several months, or the last several weeks,
on making sure that you stand out at work.
If you need more tips and pointers on how to actually do that,
make sure you check out this video because in it I tell you exactly how to do
that. If you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up.
It lets me know to make more videos like this one,
and it really helps my channel.
I would also like to take a quick moment to congratulate you
on being unapologetically ambitious,
and for taking this time to invest in yourself and your professional growth.
Thank you so much for watching. I will see you in the next video. Bye for now.
Kind of wondering if anyone's going to pick up on the bandaid and the one
nail... Because it's only one nail. I lost the other ones.