CS#234: Strategic self-promotion: How to get promoted faster (+ more)

+ a career-limiting skill, an AI tool, and other strategy for your career  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

November 16, 2023   |   Read Online   Together with  Good morning. It's Rohan with your latest Career Supplement, your personal mentorship email that takes a few minutes to read, but contains stuff that will speed up your career by years. In today's Mentor's Corner, I'm covering something that's critical but makes most of us uncomfortable: 'self-promotion' aka sharing your wins. The sad truth is, if you don't make your achievements known, they're more likely to go unnoticed by leadership. But, how do you do it without sounding like you're self-absorbed or bragging? I'll share my tips, plus also give you strategies you can use online (i.e. on LinkedIn). Today's email is sponsored by Notion AI. They've just launched one of their biggest productivity features ever: Q&A. It provides instant answers to any question, using information from across your workspace. Try it here. Estimated read time: 6 minutes 18 seconds ☕ CAREER PICK-ME-UP A 30-second bite-sized career insight.  Today's pick-me-up is from Dare Obasanjo (Source): "Someone asked me recently: What is one quality that is career limiting that many people don't realize is career limiting?   My answer? Being unable to deal with ambiguity. The more senior you get, the more there is no right answer or plan figured out. That's your job." Two notes from me: The best leaders don't wait for perfect information. They aren't paralyzed if there are too many unknowns and are comfortable making decisions with what's available right now. Practice making decisions even if you don't have all the data you need. A practical tip I love: when you approach your manager or a senior colleague with an issue, don't just present the problem – come up with a potential solution too. This gets you thinking beyond the problem. 🔦 SPOTLIGHT: NOTION How to make yourself — and your team — more productive I read a McKinsey study recently. It revealed we spend two hours every day not doing our jobs, but instead just searching for information or tracking down someone with the answer. Why? Our information is all over the place. You want to start working, but you're missing the latest updates. The files, discussions, decisions — they're scattered across different documents. This has been the unavoidable reality of big teams — until now. My favorite productivity suite, Notion, has launched (today!) a new AI feature: Q&A. It's an assistant that knows about everything you have in Notion. It's pretty…magical. You ask a question, and it answers. Need to know the next step on a project? Ask, "What were the action items coming out of the meeting with the Design team last week?" Or, need a marketing update? Ask "Where are we with the Q4 marketing deliverables?". No more sifting through documents or playing tag with colleagues. Get an answer PLUS links to the original docs so you have full traceability It's not just for work, either. Use it for personal notes, plans, lists. It's like having your own personal executive assistant that you can bug 24/7 with questions about your life and work. Join the waitlist to try Notion Q&A. It's part of Notion AI — which gives you access to Notion's entire suite of efficiency-boosting AI features. Notion's free to get started, and you can unlock Notion AI for $10 a month. 📈  Mentor's Corner Insights put together by me or coaches who usually charge $750+/hour and mentor senior execs. One practical lesson a week that will make a measurable impact on your career, delivered right to you — for $0. Get promoted faster: How to self-promote without being boastful The other day, I saw a great question on Reddit that went something like this: "I suck at self-promotion. I'm an under-communicator, and I was taught from a young age that it's not appropriate to talk about yourself. You should do your work, do it well, and let the work speak for itself - not call attention to it. But eight years into my career, I'm realizing that this mindset isn't working out well. People who talk about their wins and projects end up having their wins and projects talked about. I'm afraid I get overlooked because I'm not great at patting myself on the back or sharing my successes. Has anyone overcome this? Fantastic question, and it's something I definitely relate with - at the start of my career, I felt really awkward about self-promotion too.  But like many things in life.. just because it's out of your comfort zone doesn't mean it's something you should avoid.  The truth is.. if you don't spread the word about your work, you're leaving your career to chance. Ultimately, promotions are based on multiple people knowing you and knowing about what you've done. It's not just your manager's call. So what do you do?  Learn how to self-promote without being cringy or boastful (which is why it feels 'icky' in the first place). And that's what I'm gonna teach you in today's email. 🙅‍♀️ Myth-busting 101 A popular idea which destroys thousands of businesses and crushes careers is "build it and they will come." Or put another way, "be so good they can't ignore you." (A brilliant book btw). I'm not saying that skill isn't important. It is. (Very)  But it's like that expression..  if a tree falls down in a forest and no-one's there to hear it, does it still make a sound? If the decision-makers at your company don't know how good your work is, you're less likely to get promoted. So the first step to self-promotion is mentally reframing it from "self-promotion is the root of all evil" to "it's a vital skill to learn." With that said… 🙋‍♂️ Get involved in high profile projects The easiest way to get your work noticed is to contribute to projects which the decision-makers will see. So if there's any 'high-profile' projects in the offing, try to get involved. Don't take 'high-profile' literally: you don't need to work with a CEO or someone famous. My point is to get involved in projects which are important to the company, which in turn means key people will be working on them (including those in charge of promotions). Even small things like your name regularly showing up in emails (that seniors are cc'd in) will make sure they know who you are. 'High-profile' doesn't also need to be strictly work-related. It might be a charity event organized by work where there are going to be a lot of senior members of staff. 🗣 The small talk spark "Hey, how's it going? What you been up to?" When someone asks you this, instead of the typical, "Not much, you?", tell them a little bit about what's going well. Not in a braggy way, but in an appreciative, grateful way.  "Yeah, good. Prototype's coming along really well, and much earlier than expected, so I'm pretty pleased. What about you?" This gives them a tiny peek into your work, but also sparks genuine conversation rather than suffocating it. 📨 Start more conversations If casual conversations are good ways to get the word out, then a simple way of increasing your work's visibility is to start more conversations.  Don't be afraid to network internally. i.e. email people in other teams. For example, here's a snippet of an email you can send: "I'm currently working on the launch of the ABC initiative. Do you think it's worth having a convo to see how we can collab?" I did this a lot in my last job. After our conversations, I was always offered to be connected with other people in their team — who were often very senior and had a say in promotion decisions. 🌐 The LinkedIn strategy Yes, a lot of LinkedIn is a cringe-fest… But there's a way to do it right. To make LinkedIn content that doesn't feel like selling your soul, change the question from "How can I showcase my work" to "how can I share something valuable with others?" I've been doing this myself on LinkedIn — I make it a point that for each post I write on there, there's a clear takeaway for your career. (P.S. follow me there if you want to get non-BS career strategy in your feed). And it's been great so far. A ton of new people have reached out and I've had some productive conversations with people I wouldn't have met otherwise. 👏 'Humble' bragging and things *not* to do When does self-promotion turn into bragging? What's the line? First off, don't 'humble-brag'. Humble-bragging is when people brag but try to coat it to make it seem like they're being humble. An example 😂: It's totally fine to talk about your accomplishments, but be more genuine or direct. Other things to avoid: Avoid overly exaggerating your accomplishments, putting others down or making things always about you. Bragging: I am humbled to be the top salesperson in the company for the fifth consecutive year. Hard work always pays off! Focus on your team or colleagues instead, or share your team's wins: Better: "Thank you to Jim and Pam for the top salesperson award! I couldn't be happier to have you as my mentors." It's a small switch, but showing gratitude to others (as long as you mean it) is one way to sound less 'braggy'. That's a wrap for today. I hope that helped. If you get value out of my writing, please do one of these things: Tell people about my emails. It takes me ~20 hours researching and writing each of these coaching emails. Sharing it takes just 10 seconds. Reply with a "Yes" or leave a review on my emails so I know what resonated. From Our Team Tried all our AI tools? Want a better resume? Upload it to Score My Resume and get expert feedback, instantly. You'll find out if and where your resume falls short. Get your resume review Want to make your LinkedIn profile work for you? LinkedIn Review will show you how to optimize it so you get more leads, jobs and opportunities. Optimize your profile Want to get past the ATS? Targeted Resume will check if your resume has the right keywords. Target your resume 🤭  In all unseriousness This almost looked like a classic LinkedIn cringe post until … 🤣 🔎  Speed Up Your Job Search One actionable piece of advice to help you hack your job search. Actionable ways to update your resume Read the full article here. This article has a list of actionable things you should do if you're updating your resume after a while. Here are two suggestions from the article: 📈 Use numbers to quantify your resume. Try to add hard numbers into each of your resume's bullet points. For example, if you say you worked with data, be specific and describe how big the dataset was (in terms of rows, attributes or columns). 🍾  Highlight promotions. Hiring managers want to see evidence of career progression on your resume, especially if you're applying for mid-level and up roles. 🎯  If you haven't yet, you should probably use a tool like Score My Resume that's designed to help you update your existing resume. It'll tell you if your resume can be read by resume screeners, as well as if it passes key criteria recruiters look for. Try it here. 🫵  Before we wrap up What'd you think of today's email? 👍 I loved it. 🤔 Pretty average, step it up. 🤢 Not enough value. Here's what someone said about my last one — thank you Maxine, and a very warm welcome to you! P. S. To make sure your career never goes off the rails, don't miss my future emails. 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