Nope. The world does turn around you!

During my academic years, the path was very clear. I was studying Chemical Engineering to get a diploma in Engineering. The same with my Master, and Ph.D. in Computational Chemistry. I didn’t need to spell out my goals. They were clear to everybody and that made it easy for people to support me, mentor me, and coach me.

Then, during my post-doc, the goal was much more fluid. It was like being in limbo. People assumed I wanted to be a professor at university – that’s what everybody wanted in the lab but I was not sure anymore… And then I was sure I wanted to go to work for a commercial company. Still, because I didn’t tell anybody, nobody knew, and obviously they didn’t think to recommend me if a commercial opportunity came along.

I did get a position to work for a company in France – Solvay (aka Rhodia Research) – after my post-doc but it was all on my own. I had to look for open positions and apply to them. No warm introductions or help preparing the interviews. Still, my post-doc advisor was very supportive once I asked for a recommendation to finalise my hiring at Rhoda… I wish I’d communicated to him my intentions earlier.

I learned my lesson. Since then, I’ve been very transparent with my managers about my career goals and where I see the next step for me. This kind of conversation helped me to understand the gaps between my perception and theirs about my career ambitions.

ACTION: Spell out exactly what you want. Do you want to be promoted? Do you believe you deserve it? Say it. Explicitly. Don’t simply say “I want to be promoted” but “I have now the skills, achievements, and experience to be promoted to Sr. Support Engineer” or “Operations Sr Manager” or “Principal Software Engineer”.

And if you haven’t started to discuss it with your manager, don’t leave it to the annual review. Bring it to your next 1:1 meeting!

What’s your experience discussing your promotion with your manager?