Why Good Work Isn't Enough: How to Get Noticed for Promotion

You’ve been working above your pay grade for six months. Your manager keeps saying “soon”. Your less-experienced colleague just got promoted.

Here’s what no one tells you about getting noticed for a promotion: it’s not just about skills and experience. It’s about visibility.

How to get noticed for a promotion

This is especially true for project managers, because often we’re only visible when things are going wrong and when we’re absolutely killing it everything appears seamless, even though we’re doing our best impression of a swan sailing along gracefully while its feet go 100 mph.

Let’s talk about how to position yourself as the obvious choice the next time an opportunity comes up at work.

The visibility problem

Annoyingly, climbing the corporate ladder is less about good work and more about making sure that good work is visible to the right people.

That’s why loudmouth Ollie who goes out for a pint with your boss every Friday just got promoted – while you might find him to be insufferably obnoxious, the ones in charge know exactly what he’s achieved this year.

If you’ve ever read the booking Playing Big by Tara Mohr (and if you haven’t, you should! It’s an essential read), you’ll know that girls often excel at school, which rewards us for quietly doing the homework, handing the coursework in on time and checking the right boxes in the exam.

But when it comes to the real world, this approach doesn’t work anymore. You need to learn how to shine a light on your accomplishments and make sure those at the top know your name.

Marketing yourself is part of the job

Okay, but how do you actually go about becoming more visible at work?

There are lots of ways to do it, so you can choose a few that appeal to you, or give them all a go.

Adopt a “me first” approach

As icky as it sounds, a me-first approach isn’t about elbowing people out of the way so you can rush into the lift first, but about volunteering for opportunities, taking ownership and communicating with style.

It’s offering to cover your manager’s meetings and presentations while she’s away.

It’s putting your hand up when a director asks for someone to take ownership of a project or task.

It’s sharing updates about projects before you’re asked, and celebrating achievements publicly.

It’s asking “how can I help?”

At my last job, I recognised that my team’s work was constantly being underappreciated, so I started posting on our department’s public Teams channel whenever a new product was released or a project was delivered successfully, in addition to a weekly project update to highlight all the work the team was doing.

All of our important stakeholders were part of this channel, and they received a notification when I posted on it. This gave me a reputation as someone who got things done, because when these stakeholders saw my name pop up it was often to share a success for our team.

Talk to people

I’m not saying you need to go on every work night out, but what I will tell you is that the conversations about upcoming opportunities, what’s really going on with the business and all the piping hot tea often happen outside of the office.

Prioritise building genuine relationships with your colleagues and not only will your talents be more likely to be acknowledged and shared, but work will be a much more pleasant experience, too.

When you’re in meetings, always make sure that you speak at least once (and no, saying hello and goodbye doesn’t count), preferably with an intelligent idea or question, so people know who you are.

And let’s do a little language audit – less of the “if you think it’s okay”, “does that sound alright” and “does that make sense”, more quiet confidence

Don’t be intimidated by authority

The people at the top are just that – people.

So don’t be afraid to speak to them, or shut down when you’re in a meeting with them.

Just act and work in the confident way you usually would.

Maybe it’s just the companies I’ve worked for, but I’ve always found that treating everyone the same works well for building relationships with people of all levels, so speak to directors and other influential colleagues with confidence and share what you’re working on.

Document your achievements

Open a Google Doc right this second and write down all the projects you’ve delivered and other achievements at your current role.

It doesn’t need to be fancy or look pretty, just bullet point the important things, like the challenges, results and how you had an impact.

And add to it regularly. That way, when appraisals roll around you can present the relevant information to your manager, and you can refer to it in job applications and interviews.

As i said at the top, when things are going well, project managers are often invisible (we’re chic like that!) so you need a visibility strategy to make sure that next time, you land that promotion.