Most of us aspire to climb the corporate ladder — who wouldn’t? Others even push the envelope harder to assure career progression will materialize. Hard work, loyalty, and longevity are given factors to achieve a promotion. Getting that promotion happen is a different story.

Promotions are not just an easily given reward. Even if you pageant responsibilities with poise and comfort, promotion may still be a vague reach. Aside from a fatter paycheck and superior obligations, promotion also provides you with upstaged prestige and confidence. However, not everyone is lucky enough to covet such advancement.

Others said that it is safe to assume promotion if you’ve been working for years in a company already. Some also argued that promotion should be about the mindset to lead, regardless of one’s work longevity.

Granting that you applied for a position you truly love, the moment may come when you feel the need to tighten the tuxedo and accept greater responsibilities. Simply put, you thrive for a bigger post for personal gratification. With the ever-changing corporate paradigm, many assumed that career advancement is a token that validates your worth in the company, believing that an upward path is the best trajectory decision.

If you’re aiming for that blue-ribbon to seal the deal, here are some pointers you might need to consider to get yourself inch-by-inch ready.

  1. Embody the APLUS Values – Promotions don’t happen overnight. Fire up the advancement by advocating your principles and values to yourself and to work environment. The right attitude must come upfront the moment you set your foot inside the corporate door. Streamline that confidence while ensuring productivity with minimum supervision. Loyalty to the company matters big time in exceeding expectations with utmost transparency and integrity. Therefore, manifesting such values will eventually hone you into the ideal person for the glimmering promotion.
  2. Leading a Project with Critical Result – If your boss started giving you projects to lead, the green light in on! And when the green light is on, it’s your opportunity to prove your leadership skills. Acing collaborative projects can be a pressure. Premium talents are essentially given the opportunity to lead for the record that bosses believed they can contribute indispensable success to it. Incorporating both soft skills and hard skills will quantify success on your end. Leading to it can be a ‘hit and miss’ process, but if you exhibit confidence with smart formula, success will eventually outset. Thereupon, prepare for more projects to come.
  3. Initiative to Assist Colleagues – Sharing your creative ingenuity to colleagues constitute camaraderie. Workplace competition is commonplace to every business. Tapping your workmates back to assist their work requires hearty compassion. If you choose to raise your colleague’s performance by spreading the good word, that’s where you start building the network. Facilitating others by bringing out the best of them can eventually help you develop leadership skills. Investing time in helping out others is the fashion of climbing the ladder.
  4. Grasp for New Skills – Acquiring new skills doesn’t mean learning other expertise drastically. Expanding your horizon can be done by experimenting new tools to improve work. With this, you can stay marketable and productive at the same time by adjusting to rapid changes in the environment. Moreover, this will help boost your performance and get ahead on the competition healthily. Paying attention to what’s critical to the industry will give you insights to keep ready for the impending advancement in the future.  
  5. Walk an Extra Mile – They say running is better than walking to reach a certain destination or milestone. However, running aggregates discomfort and exhaustion if not done strategically. That’s why, taking things slowly by walking that effort an extra mile can keep work more efficient. Besides, raising the bar high by pushing your own boundaries can procreate a more meaningful accomplishment. Impress the right people by expressing the great things upon you. Ultimately, this kind of effort will lift you to the higher ground and realize the advancement you envision for a long time.
  6. Take Pride in Your Body of Work – The pleasure you get from your job equates competence, diligence, intelligence, and integrity. These qualities matter the most in every company — big or small. If you deliver these elements on your deliverables, bosses will eventually take confidence in you and will show that you’re ready for a higher post. This will also reflect on your values and passion on the pursuit; making you the rockstar in the workplace.
  7. Have a Career Development Meeting – Being upfront for this kind of meeting can be awkward to some reluctant individuals. That’s why it must be decided to explicate the desire of promotion during job interviews beforehand. This is a way to inform your superior about the itinerary you’re planning to kick off. However, employees — during the interview course — tend to forget this and focus on the paycheck and the workload specifically. Well, prompting your boss about your interest in career development is never too late. If you’re afraid that this may cause implication and wrong impression towards you, please do not. Expressing verbally your yearning for promotion can be very helpful. Why not take the coffee meeting as an assessment of your performance. Ask your boss candidly about your pursuance to the company. You can take some notes about the glitches he may explicate and commit to improving those things on your work. With this, you can easily confess during the discussion your interest for a higher post. If you get the magic word from your superior, now it’s time for you to work hard on the above-mentioned points while patiently waiting.
  8. Reassess Your Maturity – Of course, no one is too young or too old for a job promotion. However, despite all the impeccable effort and extraordinary talent, not everyone will get the eminent advancement. Being smart, productive, and competent are major elements for a job promotion, but that is not enough. The mindset to govern and the ability to solve corporate problems are critical elements as well to elevate. A follower can be smarter than a leader, but the leader must serve as the guide to a team. This also goes for the nobility to share triumph, recognition, and prestige to the rest of its people, not to brag as a personal bravado.

Igniting the hunger to elevate career is the pre-stage for advancement. Combining soft skills and hard skills must follow subsequently. Employing all these factors will secure you a strong grip on the competitive workplace. Solidify all the core things and keep that mindset to lead glimmering. Somehow, this can ripen you profoundly and will get you ready for the anticipating job promotion. Ultimately, upholding all the beforementioned points above will lead you to a greener pasture.