Promotion Preparation
This skill provides frameworks for building compelling promotion cases, maintaining brag documents, tracking accomplishments, and effectively advocating for your career advancement.
Keywords
promotion, brag document, promotion case, self-advocacy, wins, accomplishments, impact, career advancement, tracking wins, promotion document, manager alignment, performance review, evidence-based promotion
When to Use This Skill
- Building a promotion case document
- Starting or maintaining a brag document
- Tracking and categorizing accomplishments
- Preparing for performance reviews
- Understanding what managers look for
- Learning to advocate for yourself
- Documenting impact and contributions
Core Principle: You Own Your Promotion
Critical insight: Promotions are not handed out - they are earned and advocated for.
Your manager:
- Cannot remember all your accomplishments
- Has limited time to build your case
- Needs your help to advocate for you
- Wants you to succeed but needs evidence
Your responsibility:
- Track your own wins consistently
- Build your promotion case proactively
- Communicate impact clearly
- Align with manager on expectations
- Make it easy for your manager to promote you
The Promotion Case Document
A promotion case document is your comprehensive argument for advancement. It serves multiple purposes:
- Provides evidence for promotion discussions
- Helps your manager advocate for you
- Forces you to articulate your impact
- Identifies gaps you can address
Three-Section Structure
1. Accomplishments & Impact (What You've Done)
Document specific achievements with measurable outcomes:
- Projects delivered and their business impact
- Problems solved and value created
- Technical contributions and innovations
- Process improvements and efficiency gains
2. Growth & Learning (How You've Developed)
Show trajectory and development:
- Skills acquired or deepened
- Challenges overcome
- Feedback incorporated
- Areas of improvement demonstrated
3. Future Focus (What You'll Do Next)
Demonstrate readiness for next level:
- Goals aligned to next-level expectations
- Larger scope you're ready to take on
- Development areas you're addressing
- Vision for your expanded role
Brag Document Fundamentals
A brag document (also called "work log" or "wins journal") is your ongoing record of accomplishments.
Why Keep a Brag Document?
- Memory is unreliable: You forget 80% of what you did by review time
- Recency bias: Recent work overshadows earlier achievements
- Cumulative impact: Small wins add up to significant patterns
- Confidence building: Reviewing wins combats imposter syndrome
- Interview prep: Ready-made STAR stories for future opportunities
Cadence
| Frequency | Activity |
|---|
| Weekly | Quick bullet points of wins (5-10 min) |
| Monthly | Review and expand bullets, add context |
| Quarterly | Synthesize themes, identify patterns |
| Annually | Build promotion case from accumulated evidence |
What to Capture
For each win, capture:
- What: The specific accomplishment
- How: Your approach and actions
- Impact: Measurable outcomes (quantify when possible)
- Skills: What this demonstrates
- Category: Type of contribution (see Win Categorization)
Win Categorization
Not all wins are created equal. Categorize to show breadth:
Impact Types
| Type | Description | Example |
|---|
| Delivery | Shipped features, projects, products | "Launched payment v2, processing $2M/day" |
| Quality | Improved reliability, reduced bugs | "Reduced error rate from 2% to 0.1%" |
| Efficiency | Faster, cheaper, better processes | "Cut deploy time from 2 hours to 15 min" |
| Innovation | New approaches, creative solutions | "Introduced caching strategy saving $50K/year" |
| Leadership | Mentoring, leading, enabling others | "Mentored 2 engineers to senior level" |
| Collaboration | Cross-team work, partnerships | "Led joint initiative with 3 teams" |
Scope Levels
| Scope | Description | Next Level Signal |
|---|
| Individual | Your personal contribution | Expected at current level |
| Team | Improved your team's outcomes | Mid → Senior |
| Multi-team | Impact across multiple teams | Senior → Staff |
| Org-wide | Shaped organizational outcomes | Staff → Principal |
Self-Advocacy Skills
Making Your Work Visible
Visibility is not self-promotion - it's professional communication:
- Status updates: Regular, concise updates on progress
- Demo your work: Present at team meetings, tech talks
- Document decisions: Write design docs, ADRs, post-mortems
- Share learnings: Blog posts, knowledge sharing sessions
- Volunteer for visibility: All-hands demos, cross-team presentations
Articulating Impact
Weak: "I worked on the new API"
Strong: "I designed and implemented the new payments API, which reduced integration time from 2 weeks to 2 days and enabled 3 new partner integrations in Q3"
Formula: Action + Specifics + Measurable Outcome
Working with Your Manager
- Align on expectations: What does next level look like specifically?
- Share your goals: Make your promotion aspirations known
- Regular check-ins: Use 1:1s to discuss progress
- Ask for feedback: What gaps exist? What would make the case stronger?
- Request opportunities: Ask for stretch assignments aligned to next level
Common Mistakes
In Tracking Wins
- Waiting too long: Weekly tracking beats quarterly scrambles
- Being too modest: Document everything, filter later
- Only big wins: Small wins show consistency
- Skipping context: Future-you won't remember details
- No quantification: Numbers make impact concrete
In Building the Case
- Too generic: "I'm a good team player" vs specific examples
- Missing business impact: Technical achievements without business context
- No growth narrative: List of tasks vs story of development
- Ignoring gaps: Pretending weaknesses don't exist vs addressing them
- Going alone: Not aligning with manager throughout
In Self-Advocacy
- Assuming merit is enough: Great work must be visible
- Waiting to be noticed: Proactive communication is expected
- Over-advocating: Balance confidence with humility
- Wrong audience: Tailor message to stakeholders
- Timing: Don't wait until review time to start
Manager's Perspective
Understanding how managers view promotions helps you prepare effectively:
What managers need:
- Clear evidence to present to their managers
- Confidence that you'll succeed at next level
- Reduced risk of "promoting too early"
- Peer-level support for the promotion
What makes promotion easy:
- Well-documented accomplishments with impact
- Already operating at next level
- No significant concerns or gaps
- Clear narrative they can tell
What makes promotion hard:
- Vague contributions hard to articulate
- Gaps in critical competencies
- Inconsistent performance
- Lack of peer support or visibility
Building Your Promotion Timeline
6 Months Before Review
- Start or refresh brag document
- Align with manager on promotion goals
- Identify gaps and create development plan
- Seek stretch assignments
3 Months Before Review
- Begin drafting promotion case
- Review against next-level expectations
- Gather supporting evidence (docs, metrics)
- Get feedback on draft from manager
1 Month Before Review
- Finalize promotion document
- Ensure manager has everything needed
- Prepare talking points
- Document recent wins
At Review Time
- Be prepared to discuss your case
- Listen to feedback openly
- If not promoted, understand gaps and plan
- Continue tracking for next cycle
References
For detailed guidance, see:
references/promotion-case-structure.md - Complete promotion document template with examplesreferences/brag-document-guide.md - Weekly/monthly tracking templates and tipsreferences/win-categorization.md - Multi-dimensional win classification frameworkreferences/manager-perspective.md - What managers look for, how to align
Related Skills
career-progression - Level expectations and progression pathscareer-strategy - Internal vs external growth decisionsinterview-skills - Using accomplishments in interviews
Related Commands
/soft-skills:build-promotion-case - Generate a structured promotion case document/soft-skills:track-win - Document an accomplishment in brag document format