Why am I not being promoted? Career growth criteria: what is professional success

Career development does not begin from the first day of work, but much earlier, when a person first realizes how people earn. Even then, the first ideas about different types of activities and a personal attitude towards them are formed. Later, a person chooses a profession and career growth criteria based on their ambitions, lifestyle and goals.

Career types

Traditionally, there are two types of two types of career growth: horizontal and vertical. The names correspond to the direction of the employee's career development in the hierarchy of one or more companies.

Vertical growth is the classic concept of climbing the career ladder, that is, getting to a higher position. Vertical movement can be rapid or, conversely, consistent. In many companies, promotion requires going all the way from a junior position to a leadership position. Vertical career growth is typical for most enterprises and is often exactly what they want to achieve when applying for a job.

Horizontal growth means professional growth in a particular area. This includes advanced training, obtaining new skills and abilities, which makes the employee a more valuable and sought-after specialist. For example, obtaining a degree means horizontal career growth. Often, such development is chosen by people of creative or scientific professions who do not dream of a boss's chair, but want to realize their talents in a certain area.

In accordance with the preferred type of career, criteria for success are also formed.

The main criteria for a successful career

Specialists conducting research in the field of professional growth distinguish two main types of criteria for a successful career: objective and subjective. Objectively, the career growth of an employee is evaluated according to two parameters: movement within the organization and movement within the profession. The subjective or internal criterion of career success is a person's personal assessment of his work achievements.

Position held;
The speed of career advancement, or career mobility;
salary level;
Achievements.

In accordance with the selected criterion, the success of the career growth of an employee is evaluated. Let's consider these criteria in more detail.

Job status

Most often, it is the position held that is considered the key criterion for success. People who aspire to climb the corporate ladder are building a vertical career - moving up the steps of the company's hierarchy. Their motivation is the desire to occupy a higher and more respectable position. This approach is common in our society and is fully justified, because promotion means an increase in social status and almost always - salaries, as well as a more prestigious entry in the work book.

career mobility

Career mobility is understood as the speed of promotion. In modern companies, career mobility is considered high if a person stays in one position for two to three years. If an employee occupies the same position for a long time, the authorities believe that he has “stagnated” and lost his competitive advantage. A high rate of climbing the career ladder is an indicator of the competence of an employee who masters new skills with each higher position. In addition, this indicates the penetrating personal qualities of a person: ambition and purposefulness.

earnings

In the theory of "monetary" career, competence is valued in terms of money, and the employee strives to become the best specialist in order to cost more. This criterion of career success is common, for example, in American society. In our country, money also plays an important role in choosing a profession. On the other hand, young professionals often turn down financially advantageous offers in favor of a higher social status. Few people want to go to work as an electrician, because it is not prestigious, and the position of junior manager sounds much better. During this time, a professional electrician can earn twice as much as a novice office worker.

Achievement career

People who set themselves the goal of completing as many big projects as possible choose the career path of achievement. They are reckless and ready to take risks, they are not attracted by dry salaries and job titles. Despite the fact that they are not chasing money, they often manage to "hit the big jackpot" and even get a high social status. Usually they realize themselves in the fields of art, finance, science and achieve impressive results.

This question worries not only yesterday's graduates, but also accomplished professionals (many people have been working in the same place for years and cannot be promoted). For many, the prospect of career growth is even more important than a decent salary (but as a rule, one follows from the other).

If you are dreaming or just thinking about building a career and expect to receive a good salary in the future, then you need to think about what qualities you need to have and what to do in order to quickly advance in your career.

Career growth. How to make a career?

1. The main condition for successful career growth, no matter how trite it may sound, is love for your work. It has long been proven that the success of career growth directly depends on the satisfaction of a person with his work, on what he does. So what matters first choose a profession to your liking and only then think about building a career. In an unloved business, it is almost impossible to make a career.

2. Promotion depends not only on a sincere desire to do their job, but also on a sincere desire to achieve career growth in this enterprise. Positive attitude, self-confidence (Read - " How to gain self-confidence"), the confidence that you deserve career advancement and be sure to achieve it - it will give a positive result. That is, you should simply not think (sleep and see) yourself without this position, which you will strive for.

3. Constant professional growth is one of the conditions for career growth at the enterprise. It is important to constantly improve, independently search and acquire new knowledge. Do not rely solely on the knowledge that you can get in the company you work for, track and implement the positive experience of other companies, analyze the negative. Analysis of the activities of competitors (skills, skills and abilities) also contributes to professional growth. You must have a sincere desire to improve the quality of your work, this will positively affect your career growth.

4. In order to cope with their duties on time and still have time for self-education and self improvement you need to be able to optimize your working time as much as possible. It is self-organization that will allow you to learn more effectively and purposefully plan your activities.

5. Quite often, in order to get a promotion, you need to stand out with your successes, show results, make sure that your merits are noticed and appreciated. For this, you need to put in a lot of effort. Well, who said that career growth is simple and easy?

Career unlikely if you do not know how to present yourself, do not know how to emphasize your strengths and pay attention to the results of your activities (they are not always noticed, managers often pay attention only to problem areas). Like it or not, career advancement in an enterprise is often the result of self-promotion. Those who praise their achievements and results receive the most delicious tasks and promotions more often than those who are modestly silent and neglect self-promotion and self-promotion.

6. Career growth can only be achieved if you know how to get along with people. Of course, professionalism and energy are highly valued, but if you bring confusion to the work of the team, are constantly in a state of conflict, on business and without, criticize your colleagues, behave arrogantly - this speaks of you as a quarrelsome person, unable to compromise and find a common language with people. In this case, the prospect of career growth does not even smell - the management, despite your obvious merits, will be wary of you.

This does not mean at all that you need to be stubbornly friends with everyone, it’s just that since you have common goals and you are doing a common thing, it will be logical to work with everyone, and not against everyone. At the same time, it is also important not to slip into familiarity and fawning.

7. Even the most successful and lucky people in the world are not immune from criticism. What can we say about mere mortals! Therefore, if you are aspiring to the top, want to improve and grow, you need to learn to accept criticism and learn to appreciate comments.

The main thing here is to be able to distinguish constructive criticism from biased attacks. Criticism from a qualified, professional person can be useful to you, you need to listen to it, especially if it affects only the work process. But spiteful attacks, which are often a manifestation of envy, should not be taken to heart.

What else do you need to know a person who dreams of career growth:

Often in the process of building a career, people are faced with a choice: to leave for another company, where they offer a higher position, or to stay in a team that you are used to, in which you feel comfortable and wait for a suitable vacancy to open in your native company and you, finally, offer a raise. Alas, there is no definite answer to this question. It's quite difficult to catch the moment when you outgrow the scope of your position, and when you are promoted.

It can be said for sure that in medium and small companies the prospect of career growth is not great, specialists here grow up much faster than vacancies appear. But large companies have a significant advantage - an employee who is thinking about how to make a career and is aimed at promotion is always ready to offer something.

In typical foreign films, a kid who started out as a paperboy becomes the head of a publishing concern a couple of years later. And a hard-working and diligent maid from a fashionable hotel, year after year, climbing up the career ladder, eventually grows to the chair of the director of this very hotel, where she once cleaned the rooms. In fact, life is much more complicated than it looks in the movies. But anyway career development everyone can achieve, there would be a desire.

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The job is boring but the pay is high. Or vice versa: interesting tasks, but pay leaves much to be desired. How do you know it's time to change jobs? What is a career crisis and when does it occur?

To ensure that your career always goes only uphill, read the recommendations.

Vicious circle
It is far from always the dream job, which you managed to get with such difficulty, remains so even a few years later. It happens that over time it becomes clear: in the company you will remain only a cog in a big machine - and you will print payments or write press releases from month to month, from year to year. But I wanted something completely different: a gradual increase in responsibility, professional development, career growth. As a result, fatigue appears, and Monday mornings become the most unpleasant time of the week. What to do?

In such situations, psychologists talk about a career crisis. It is customary to call it a state of prolonged absence of professional development and / or career growth. A concept close, but not identical to this, is professional burnout, that is. However, unlike professional burnout, a career crisis does not mean a desire to radically change the field of activity, but only speaks of a desire to break out of a vicious circle. We are talking about a serious dissatisfaction of a specialist with his position: the same duties, unobvious prospects for climbing the career ladder, a feeling of a “career ceiling”.

The reasons for this phenomenon are very different. For example, a manager has long outgrown his position, wants to grow and develop further, but vertical career growth is impossible, since his immediate boss is not going to leave his place and is zealous about the career aspirations of his subordinates. It is hardly possible for a department head to be promoted in a company where top managers are exclusively family members or business owners. There are not too many prospects for development for specialists working in a profile that is not the main one in a small organization (for example, an accountant at a school).

When does it happen?
Psychologists say that the first career crisis often occurs within a year or two after the start of employment. Romantic ideas about the profession, characteristic of youth, are being replaced by harsh reality. It becomes clear that it is far from always possible to quickly achieve what one dreamed of.

23-25-year-old specialists overcome this crisis in different ways. Someone comes to understand that a quick result is not always good and that it is necessary, as they say, to grow to some positions. Someone changes jobs in search of more interesting tasks and broader powers. Someone is trying to start their own business.

A career crisis is noticeably more difficult to endure in adulthood (30-40 years), because it can also coincide with the so-called midlife crisis. By this time, the specialist acquires serious experience and often thinks: what next? In what direction to develop? How to get to the next level? Is it worth changing jobs or is it possible to achieve a promotion in this company?

Ways out
To overcome a career crisis, first assess what exactly is hindering your development and whether the limiting factors can be overcome. It happens, for example, that a lack of knowledge does not allow you to climb the next step (for example, to take the position of marketing director, a PR manager with a higher philological education may not have enough economic education). This problem is surmountable - you need to make a decision about continuing education, attending courses, trainings, and possibly getting a second higher education or an MBA degree. In such cases, it is not at all necessary to change jobs to resolve a career crisis.

But what if your further professional growth is impossible due to the peculiarities of management in the company? For example, you are a deputy general director, but you will never become a director, since you are not a shareholder. Or are you an engineer, but are you tired of developing the same type of parts, and new projects are not expected at the enterprise?

Of course, in such situations there is no, and there cannot be, a single solution. For some, it is better to find a new job, for some it is better to stay in the company and wait, and someone even prefers to open their own business.

Having a frank conversation with your boss can help you make the right decision. Explain that lately you have been feeling tired and less interested in old tasks, that you would like to have a clearer idea of \u200b\u200bwhat prospects for development in the company you could count on. After all, your boss may not be aware of what doubts torment you, but meanwhile he can help you - send you to study, review duties, think about your “horizontal” growth, expand your terms of reference or revise your compensation package. A competent leader will treat such a conversation as carefully as possible, because, most likely, it is not in his interests to lose a good team member.

But what if talking doesn't help? According to the Research Center of the recruiting portal site, the possibility of professional development is the main reason that can encourage specialists to change jobs if, in general, the current position suits them. About it . Recruiters also consider the need for professional growth to be a very significant reason for looking for a new job.

Sometimes a job change is really the only way out of a career crisis situation. Possible losses in salary and position should be considered as inevitable risks. Probably, in six months you will return to the previous level of income, or even exceed it.

However, you can also apply for a higher position if you think that you have already “grown up”. Arrange your resume in a way that is obvious to the hiring manager. At the interview, explain why you decided to leave your previous job. Most likely, this will find understanding, because the desire to grow and develop is the best motivation in the eyes of a recruiter.

Good luck in overcoming career crises!

How to make a career- this question worries not only yesterday's graduates, but also accomplished professionals (many people have been working in the same place for years and cannot be promoted). For many, the prospect of career growth is even more important than a decent salary (but as a rule, one follows from the other).

Career growth. How to make a career?

1. The main condition for successful career growth, no matter how trite it may sound, love for your work . It has long been proven that the success of career growth directly depends on the satisfaction of a person with his work, on what he does. So it is important to initially choose a profession to your liking, and only then think about building a career. In an unloved business, it is almost impossible to make a career.

2. Promotion depends not only on a sincere desire to do their job, but also on a sincere desire to achieve career growth in this enterprise. Positive attitude, self-confidence , the confidence that you deserve career advancement and will definitely achieve it will give a positive result. That is, you should simply not think (sleep and see) yourself without this position, which you will strive for.

3. Continuous professional growth one of the conditions for career growth in the enterprise. It is important to constantly improve, independently search and acquire new knowledge. Do not rely solely on the knowledge that you can get in the company you work for, track and implement the positive experience of other companies, analyze the negative. Analysis of the activities of competitors (skills, skills and abilities) also contributes to professional growth. You must have a sincere desire to improve the quality of your work, this will positively affect your career growth.

4. In order to cope with their duties on time and more have time for self-education and self-improvement , you need to be able to optimize your working time as much as possible. It is self-organization that will allow you to learn more effectively and purposefully plan your activities.

5. Quite often in order to get a promotion, stand out for your success , show the result, make sure that your merits are noticed and appreciated. For this, you need to put in a lot of effort. Well, who said that career growth is simple and easy?

6. Career growth can only be achieved if you know how to get along with people . Of course, professionalism and energy are highly valued, but if you bring confusion to the work of the team, are constantly in a state of conflict, on business and without, criticize your colleagues, behave arrogantly - this speaks of you as a quarrelsome person, unable to compromise and find a common language with people. In this case, the prospect of career growth does not even smell - the management, despite your obvious merits, will be wary of you.

7. Even the most successful and lucky people in the world are not immune from criticism. What can we say about mere mortals! Therefore, if you are directed upwards, want to improve and grow, you learn to accept criticism and learn to appreciate comments.

What else do you need to know a person who dreams of career growth:

We note right away that there are no unambiguous answers to these questions, just as there are no and cannot be clear step-by-step instructions that will work equally effectively for any person, regardless of his personal views and ambitions and the context of the career situation in which he finds himself.

Set your personal priorities

To formulate the right answer for yourself, you need to clearly understand your own system of values and priorities, the limits of your career ambitions, the value of your own professional and managerial skills and expertise for a particular company, industry and, more broadly, the entire market. It is also necessary to determine where is the optimal balance between professional growth and personal life, the boundaries of the acceptable "comfort zone" and the degree of readiness to go beyond it. Ultimately, this whole set of questions comes down to one thing - what exactly makes you happy and allows you to fully realize your own professional potential?

For some, this is a deep functional expertise, an "expert" career in key business functions, such as R&D, marketing or finance. For others, it is project work, active involvement in the implementation of priority projects for the company at all stages from planning to solving a complex set of tactical tasks, effective management of time, financial and human resources, risk management and ensuring the high quality of final results. For others, it is full responsibility for the business with the readiness and ability to make decisions in conditions of high uncertainty, manage changes and motivate their own team in any market situations, as well as the willingness to take personal responsibility for all decisions made.

It is also important to determine what size of business - the size of the team, the complexity of the organizational structure, the size of the turnover - is optimal for your development. For some, a "dream team" is a small group of people with common goals, similar backgrounds and interests. For others, it is a large multifunctional team built on the principle of professional, cultural and gender diversity and bringing together people with often conflicting interests and different views on the situation. Someone likes "flat" small structures, and for someone it is important to feel like a part of a huge organization.

Having dealt with your own priorities, it is important to determine the personal "bar" of career growth and focus on it in professional development. For some, it is to become a leading marketer in a large international company, who enjoys unconditional authority at the global headquarters level, thanks to the level and quality of the projects being implemented. For others, it is to enter the top 10 best financial directors in the local market. And for someone - to become the CEO of a company with a turnover of 2 billion rubles.

The next step is to “digitize” your career top, that is, to assess what functional and managerial expertise is not enough to become the best CFO or CEO for a large company, and how to acquire these skills. You can gain missing competencies, among other things, by working with mentors, interacting with more experienced colleagues, including expats, participating in large projects that allow you to gain new functional experience, as well as receiving additional education, including increasing the level of foreign language proficiency.

At the stage of assessing your own skills and ambitions, it is worth considering why this particular company is important to you. Perhaps you feel comfortable working in this team, you know the product and customers very well, you are attracted by a generous benefits package, and in the end you like the location of the office. If these benefits are high on your list, then this is a wake-up call to hovering in your comfort zone. And in this case, the career of a top manager is hardly for you. A leader is always willing to step out of his comfort zone, follow the latest trends, manage change and motivate his own team to work effectively in an environment of high uncertainty. If a person has worked in one company for more than 10 years, with each additional year his chances of being hired by another company decrease, also because it becomes more and more difficult for him to adapt to the corporate culture of another company, to act within other “cultural codes”. At the same time, in a highly competitive market there will always be candidates who have removed such a risk of over-adaptation by one or more transitions. Therefore, you need to be prepared for the fact that the price of “attachment” to one company is a career in it until retirement.

Take on the role of "corporate returnee"

So, in order to grow, a top manager must strive for change - including changing companies. We see the value of the best managers in transferring knowledge to new market segments and gaining new knowledge during transitions, while the most optimal period of work in one company is a period of 5-7 years.

Let's say that your ambition is to enter the top 10 best CFOs in Russia. You are not a top manager yet, but you already work for one of the top 10 companies in the country. If you are a step or two away from being a CFO, it is important to see if your name is on the list of successors to the desired role and to take an assessment of your technical and leadership competencies in order to plan a strategy for further career growth.

However, if direct conversations about your development in this company usually end only with an offer to “wait a little longer,” then staying means losing your leadership capital. In this case, the best way out is to open up to outside opportunities, get more managerial experience in another business, but keep the option of returning by creating the right support network in the current company. Now the attitude towards the so-called "corporate repatriates" has changed from negative to positive. Companies began to realize that the return of a previously effective employee after a “career zigzag” is a much more reliable hiring solution than the arrival of a “new and unknown” specialist.