#CareerAdvancement #PromotionOpportunity #ProfessionalGrowth
🌟 Are you feeling stuck in your current position because you are too good at it to be promoted? You’re not alone. Many professionals find themselves in this frustrating situation where they feel their skills are being overlooked and they are not being given the opportunities they deserve. But fear not, there are steps you can take to navigate this challenging situation and work towards advancement in your career.
### Why Am I Too Good to Promote?
It’s a common dilemma faced by many employees – you excel in your current role, you go above and beyond, and you become an indispensable asset to your team. However, instead of being rewarded with a promotion, you are told that you are too valuable in your current position to be moved. This can be frustrating and demotivating, but there are a few reasons why this might be happening:
1. **Lack of Available Opportunities**: Sometimes, the company might genuinely not have any open positions for you to advance into.
2. **Fear of Losing Talent**: Employers may be hesitant to move you into a new role because they fear losing your expertise in your current position.
3. **Comfort in Familiarity**: Your manager may be comfortable with you in your current role and hesitant to disrupt the status quo.
### How to Navigate the Situation
While it may be disheartening to feel like you are being held back, there are steps you can take to proactively address this situation and work towards advancement:
1. **Have a Candid Conversation**: Schedule a meeting with your manager to express your desire for growth and ask for specific feedback on what you can do to be considered for promotion.
2. **Seek Mentorship**: Connect with a senior leader in your organization who can provide guidance and support in navigating your career path.
3. **Expand Your Skill Set**: Take on new projects, pursue professional development opportunities, and seek out experiences that will make you a stronger candidate for promotion.
4. **Look for External Opportunities**: Keep an eye out for job openings in other companies that align with your career goals and offer the advancement opportunities you seek.
### Conclusion
Feeling too good at your current position to be promoted can be a challenging situation to navigate, but it’s important to remember that you have agency in shaping your career path. By actively seeking feedback, expanding your skill set, and exploring opportunities for advancement, you can work towards achieving your career goals. Remember, your professional growth and development are in your hands, and you have the power to take control of your future. So don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself and take the necessary steps to advance in your career.
Start looking for another job, it will never change and the longer you stay the more opportunities you lose. Keep doing your work but start that job search.
Be frank in interviews, say “I’m looking for a challenge and to gain new skills, I have loved my time withXYZ company and want to continue to grow in this industry.
My advice to you is to look into yourself and ask why you’re looking for the promotion. Be brutally honest with yourself.
Is it the power over others? This isn’t a good reason to be a leader. You’re supposed to be an escalation path and someone people can turn to for help.
Is it to mentor others? While you can absolutely take people under your wing and train them, it’s on them to learn their jobs and responsibilities. You can only do so much, and if they aren’t willing to learn, you’re going to have a bad time.
Is it for status? You said you got a raise, so clearly you’re being recognized as a value to the company; but remember, they have THEIR best interests at heart, not yours.
If you really are ready to move up, then you’re also ready to move out. It’s a brutal market right now, but you’ve got a job so take your time and interview some companies to see what’s out there.
Best of luck.
Don’t let that hold you back. Quit if they won’t promote you. Believe in yourself and go find the next opportunity. You got this!
> I don’t know what to do
I suspect you already DO know what to do.
So does everyone else here.
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> I’ve also been told once my team gets stronger as a whole there will be more room for discussion but there’s no guarantee that will even happen.
Hell will freeze over first.
A new company may feel differently and reward you for your experience and hard work.
Sounds like you are too good to continue working there. Go find somewhere that understands your worth
I’m going to join the “find another job” chorus. Some companies are very weird about this kind of thing and don’t realize that they’re only shooting themselves in the foot. They see you as only what you can do now, not your potential. On the other hand, some places are actually pretty good about not doing that.
Early in my career, I was in almost the same position as you, except that no one came out and told me I was too valuable. Just, no matter what I did, I was always the go-to for the crappy shifts when the people on those shifts screwed up or left. They just saw me as the reliable early morning/late night/weekends guy they could slot in.
So I interviewed with a new place, told them straight out I was looking to move up into a new position doing something different in the same place within a year. I got the job (at a 15% pay cut) and was doing I wanted to be doing there in less than six months (and got back what I lost in the pay cut). That one move pretty much set up the rest of my career.
Your company is taking advantage of you, because they think you’ll lie down and do nothing.
Will you prove them right?
This happened to me and my former manager, who was 2nd to the company’s CEO was the problem. When the company installed its esg initiatives, he didn’t agree with them at all and held me to a much different standard than everyone else. There was no true management and not one person on the executive management team batted an eye.
– I wasn’t able to participate in the company’s policy of working remotely 1 day a week while he worked remotely 3 days.
– He complained every time I asked for PTO, which I was entitled to by telling me I could only take Fridays and Mondays off, but complained about me not taking all my PTO time at the end of the year and I was the only one that wasn’t able to roll my time over.
– He complained about me taking a later lunch because someone may “need me”, but would give me “urgent” assignments to complete every time I tried to leave for lunch during the set times he wanted me to, which was between 12 and 1, then complained when I didn’t take a lunch.
– Most of my projects were given a very vague direction by him and once I completed them he’d either ignore my work, or change the direction 100 times, forcing me to constantly go in circles.
– I was accused of stepping on his toes if I ever showed more initiative. I wasn’t trying to. I just didn’t want him to continue to look bad, and I had the capability and the skill set to do other things beyond what was given to me.
– He would complain if I came in 5 minutes late, yet was given a very high volume of work where I was putting in an average of 10 hour days, then questioning why I was working so much.
– He would complain I was taking too long to write legal contracts for clients when they came back with changes from him with a large number of typos (I’m not sending subpar contracts out to clients).
– I was micromanaged on a daily basis and yelled at by him in front of my colleagues.
– I was in a position where I was working with several departments and have a very diverse set of skills, so he kept giving me work from other departments.
– My bonuses were shorted because he believed he was entitled to a larger share, being in the position he was in (bonuses pooled according to department, with the department managers having a say who gets what). My colleagues were getting an average of $10,000 bonuses and I was getting about $4k.
– A small portion of my work was heading marketing and PR, which was a very small and easy piece of my time, and he ignored my suggestions and professional opinions on changes and enhancements.
– I was the only employee who couldn’t use sick time for medical visits because he didn’t agree with the policy.
– Every year during my review, he would focus on all the negatives, and told me that I needed to have better time management, but my workload was constantly being piled on. He would deny my chance to ever excel noting I couldn’t get my work completed in the allotted time frame and he was concerned that by ne being a parent, it would compromise my dedication. He also had no clue the extent and detail of the work I did have since I was in a position of being more of a liaison between a number of departments. He also accused me of not being a team player for refusing to participate in after hours events or attending the company holiday parties.
The straw that broke the camels back for me was him writing me up for staying home for 4 days with my 8 year old who had Covid. It’s not that I didn’t want to work. He denied my request to work remotely because he needed me to come in. He had the audacity to tell me that I needed to have a backup childcare system in place, but couldn’t comprehend that something like this was beyond my control. His reasoning for the denial is that I couldn’t possibly get any work done if I was home with a small child, and he needed to make certain that I was actually working and not taking advantage of “free time” which was just bullshit. I had to use PTO for that time frame when other employees were treated much more reasonably for similar circumstances. I also never gave any indication while working of being irresponsible.
An attorney who worked closely with us offered me a position I couldn’t refuse, with a 35% pay increase, 15% bonus structure, unlimited PTO, wfh 2 days a week, wellness reimbursements, HSA contributions, etc. My boss at the time was known for being difficult to work with, and when I sat down with the attorney, he informed me that I could sue for discrimination, which I never did. After accepting the offer, the attorney fired said company as a client. The CEO caught wind of it, and begged me to stay by throwing more money/benefits at me. I explained that no one batted an eye when I professionally tried to speak up for myself and went through all the reasons why I was leaving. I took the awesome job, and I’m highly respected and was given a promotion within a year. I also finally have a decent work/life balance. No one questions me if I need to work remotely and take my little one to an appointment in the middle of the day because they trust me, and they know I’ll provide quality work.
I found out that he had gone through 3 people in the course of 6 months after I left and they ended up having to hire 3 people to take the place of what I did. That solidified that everything I was complaining about was not in my head like I was believed to. Oh, and that guy I worked for? He got fired.
If you were honestly too valuable to lose. The company would do quite a bit to keep you at the company besides paying you an exorbitant amount. Like $100/hr. Or doing anything illegal. But I am sorry to say this. I don’t think you are that valuable at your position. So look for another job that will pay you more since you will have that experience.
It’s been my experience that often times employees are seen as capable of a certain ‘level’.
Because of that perception, they see some as not worthy of promotion. I’m not saying that is OPs situation however it may be relevant.
This is why when OP does leave and gets a better position elsewhere, all of a sudden the first employer will finally recognize the talent and begin offering title, pay, etc to try to coerce them to stay.
So you’re ‘too valuable’?
Are they paying you for your value? If not, why not?
Being recognised for it is a good thing. Using it as a reason to not pay for it is fucking bullshit.
Then you can start act your wage and relax, since you’re invaluable.
“If I’m too good to promote, then you’ll really be sorry when I leave and I’m doing all this good work for someone else”
I was told my stats were too good to move me from my (then) current project. I had been working on this project for over two years and was burnt out. My supervisor told me to my face that I made his bonus, and he wasn’t approving me leaving the team.
One day I went in, logged in to everything, and then just sat there staring at the computer screen. I couldn’t make myself do my job. I made one phone call, hung up, logged out, grabbed all my stuff from my office and walked out. I threw my badge and i.d. at the security guy on the way out.
It was so rude to just toss it across the desk like that but I couldn’t help myself. Sorry, John, I wasn’t in a good place at that moment but it wasn’t your fault. I miss your stories of pushing cattle and rolling cigs on your arm as you rode a horse. They always made my breaks truly a mental break.
The feeling I had as I walked out that door for the last time was indescribable. A huge weight lifted off my shoulders and I felt like I could breathe for the first time in a long time. I sat in my car and cried tears of relief and long overdue stress release. I went home, got drunk, and applied to both jobs and colleges the next day. I found joy in physically demanding jobs for a few years until I became disabled, unrelated to the job lol
I was told the other day I won’t be leaving my current position, “you’re doing great, I talk to the higher ups and if you get your thirds exams passed we’ll bump up your pay even tho it’s a fourth position”. It fucking sucks, I work like a mule all day while they just sit in the boiler room. It’s gotten so bad that our local maintenance people have been doing check ups on our third and seconds engineers to make sure they’re actually working, they’ve caused our facility to shut down so many times for obvious mistakes. I’m leaving the second my papers are signed. Fuck that place and those people
Alternative to the find another job… Other to take on the hiring, training and management of your replacement. Chuck in building a training manual to sweeten the pot. Then after 12 months you get your promotion?
You have to play stupid otherwise you get punished the better job you do with more work/responsibilities yet the pay stays the same. Don’t be a sucker and play dumb/slow.
You been pigeon holed. Your company will keep you stuck there indefinitely with broken promises.
The way out of that is to polish up your resume
And apply for another company, negotiate a higher salary and better position.
Clearly you need to dial back the enthusiasm and start looking for the promotion at a different company.
When this happened to me I told my company either lose me to a better position or lose me to another company. It’s pretty simple. They’re essentially telling you you’re in a dead end job if you can’t move upward.
You need to start looking for another job. Keep in mind this isn’t just about what they’re paying you today. Getting trapped in a dead-end position could delay your career advancement in a lot more ways than just salary. A new position means building and honing new skills, taking on greater responsibility, and gaining new experience. Those in turn will be what gets you the next better job, and the one after that, all the way down the line. The longer you tread water, the harder it’s going to be to gain momentum again later.
Remember: your job doesn’t—and can’t—love you. You are a resource to them, and nothing more. They will use you for everything they can and cast you aside the moment it is to their advantage to do so. It’s your responsibility to love yourself, and that means doing what’s in your own best interest. Your loyalty to the company should only ever extend as far as the degree to which it serves your own interest.
That’s a shitty thing to say, but it’s the reality of life under capitalism.