Ask Women in Product: What steps have you taken to ensure career advancement within your company?
Cassidy Fein and Bhavika Shah answer this week’s question: What steps have you taken in the past to ensure career advancement within your company?
Answer from Cassidy Fein, Senior Product Manager at Echo360
Advancement can be seen as many things — a promotion in title, a raise in salary, more direct reports, executed projects, influence. Sometimes, the advancement comes naturally; however, there are times when you do need to “engineer” the situation to make sure you are on the right track. The suggestions in this post can be used to achieve gains in any of these areas.
Fake it ’til you make it
Keep track of everything you do, even things you wish you could have done better. You’ll have an easier time promoting your wins and goals when you can actually remember them. Also, make sure you address and create new goals around areas you’ve fumbled or wish you could have done better.
Work for the role you want, not just the one you have.
Be aware of your role’s stated responsibilities and how your current work may go above and beyond them. Work for the role you want, not necessarily the one you have. For example, if you want to be promoted from a Junior PM role to a Product Marketer, make sure you’re regularly engaged with the marketing team, involved in new campaigns, familiar with old ones, etc. If not, it’s never too late to start!
Strengthen connections
This probably goes without saying, but it is vital that you work well with your colleagues and support them — promotions usually aren’t spurred just by your manager alone.
It’s especially worth seeking out colleagues in departments or positions you’re interested in so you can learn more about their experiences and how they came to be there. Sometimes the people you’d least expect can be the most helpful, informative, and supportive of your career.
Know your worth
Always know your current market value. There are endless tools you can use to compare your current salary to others with your position (or with the position you want). Try Indeed, Glassdoor, or angel.co, just to name a few. Be aware of any gaps (keeping in mind that benefits have value too!) and be ready to argue for why that gap needs to be bridged. Some companies also make their salary information public. For example, Buffer has a radical transparency policy and specific pay structure according to multiple variables like length of employment, location, position, and others.
Depending on the climate at your company and how close you are with your co-workers, it is extremely beneficial to discuss salary with them. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protects your right to improve your wages and working conditions. It is illegal for your employer to retaliate against you for exercising your legally protected right to discuss salaries with coworkers. There are, however, certain exceptions; be sure to read through the laws thoroughly and understand how they apply to you.
Keep yourself well-rounded
Make yourself valuable outside of your company as well — it will help you feel more fulfilled and incidentally will be great additions to your resume. Consider activities like mentoring, volunteering, keeping a blog with relevant thoughts and ideas about your industry or the industry you want to break into, and attending conferences or meetups in your area. I’ve been mentoring with WAVE by #BUILTBYGIRLS, and there are many amazing groups like Black Girls Code, Lesbians Who Tech, and Hack the Hood for tech-focused volunteering and mentoring opportunities. Start by finding out which organizations are in need of volunteers. Keep your balance of ikigai.
Be willing to walk
If, despite your efforts, your company still doesn’t see your true worth, look at options elsewhere and seriously consider moving on. If advancing your career is that important to you (which it should be!), ultimately you should be willing to walk.
It may suck, and it may happen at a company you truly care about and enjoy working at, but getting dead-ended can happen to anyone. If you’re okay with coasting that’s one thing, but knowing when it’s time to leave can sometimes be the best ace up your sleeve.
Answer from Bhavika Shah, Product Manager at Pluralsight
Navigating your career can be difficult and stressful; it’s not always clear what to do and how to do it. In about seven years of working, I’ve held five roles, most recently landing the role I’ve been working towards — that of product manager. Below are some of the strategies that have been most effective for my career so far.
Be awesome where you are
Many years ago, I read a post that changed the way I thought about my career. It was titled simply, Be awesome where you are. At that time, I was often thinking (and worrying) about my next career move: “What role did I want? How was I going to get it and when?”
I’m not suggesting that you don’t think about career advancement and progress — no doubt it’s something to think about proactively and work towards. However, your chances for career advancement, whether it’s a promotion, being placed on a high visibility project, or other new opportunities, are absolutely better if you crush what you do every day.
Think about what skills you can develop further that will help you take your career in your desired direction and work on getting better at those within your current role. Be the best you can be, and when new opportunities arise, you’ll be much better prepared and have a higher chance to be placed for them.
Understand your metrics for success
What criteria are you evaluated on and what defines success for your product and your role? You’ll need to set clear expectations with your manager about success criteria and hold regular check-ins about how you’re doing to ensure that there are no surprises at career conversation time. It’s even better if you have a hand in setting those metrics for success, especially for your product. Your manager may not have the best sense of what’s realistic but aspirational for your product, but you should and can use that information to set and manage expectations.
Raise your hand for meaningful opportunities
You can’t do everything for everyone, and if you try, you’ll be worse off for it. Instead, seek out opportunities that further yourself in specific ways and benefit the company as well. Here are a few things to ask yourself if you’re considering a “side project” to work on within your company:
- Skill advancement: will working on this project help you build or improve a skill that’s important for roles you want in your career?
- Alignment with company goals: does the project help your company understand your customers better or improve the way you work as a company?
- Knowledge enhancement: will the project help you take your domain expertise to the next level?
- Recognition: does the project have visibility with leadership or key stakeholders that you need to build relationships with?
- Impact: will your contribution have a positive impact on the team, product, or organization that you can call a win?
If you can’t answer yes to at least one of these questions, consider what benefit to you and the company this project would bring. If the answer isn’t clear, it might not be worth your extra time and effort.
People can’t help you get to where you want to be if they don’t know where that is.
Ask for what you want
In conversations with your manager and other leaders, don’t be afraid to share your career goals, the types of roles and opportunities that you want, and the skills you want to develop. They can’t help you get to where you want to be if they don’t know where that is.
Also, ask for clarity in what’s required for you to get to where you want to be. For example, if you have your eye on a promotion to senior product manager, have a conversation about what skills you need to develop further for that role. Understand the company’s belief system, process, and cycle around promotions, so you know when to have the conversations and how to position yourself for success. Similarly, if you have an eye on a key project to work on, talk to the people leading that effort to understand what they need and how you might be able to contribute.
Not sure where to start? Brent Tworetzky wrote about the different skills PMs might possess at different seniority levels. While the expectations vary across companies, you can get a sense of what to expect and strive for.
Find your advocates
Find people who take the time to get to know you, your skills, and goals — who can advise and guide you in your career. This might not necessarily include your manager but great if it does. Most importantly, they represent you in conversations that you’re not in — whether that’s within your company or elsewhere. In my career, my advocates have backed me up for key opportunities, provided resources to help me build specific skills, and have been instrumental in helping me navigate difficult career decisions and conversations.
Strong mentor relationships are developed over time and through more than just career conversations — you share common interests and have a genuine interest in each other’s lives. Each of these relationships is a two-way street and it won’t work if both parties aren’t invested. It also helps if you take the time to understand the key components of a successful mentor-mentee relationship. You can start by simply getting to know the people around you that have skills or roles you want to work towards.
Just remember that at the end of the day, you’re in charge of your career. Figure out what works best for you, go forth and be awesome!
Thank you to Amy Lin for editing this piece.
