Most companies have an internal bidding process for employees who would like to change roles or move up within the company.  Internal bidding processes are great because it keeps everything formal and organized for the company.  For an employee, it means waiting for a job to come open before getting a chance to move up.  Many people are interested in moving up well before a position actually opens, but you can start taking on a bigger role now.  This will begin to lay the ground work to potentially create a different route to get you where you want to be. 

1. Make sure your current role is under control.  The biggest mistake people make when ambitiously visualizing their next step is to lose sight of how well they are doing in their current role.  Be objective; what kind of a performance appraisal would you get if your boss were to give you feedback right now?   If it is not great, then you need to work on your current performance first.

2. Identify a productive project.  Most companies have too much work to do and not enough people to do it, so a lot of projects that could be very fruitful go uncompleted or sometimes even unrealized.  Identify an area for which the company could be improved or enhanced. 

3. Create a project plan.  You will need to get buy in from your supervisor before initiating this project.  Put together a report or project plan that you could realistically execute.  One important thing to keep in mind is to not provide a plan that includes spending more money.  Insufficient funds could be the reason the problem has not been corrected in the first place.

4. Use your relationship skills to enlist the help you need.  You will probably need the help of coworkers, and that they not be as eager as you are if this is not a mandated project.  You will need to develop good relationship building skills and help them to understand the project’s benefits for the company.  Your ability or lack thereof to build relationships during this project will be a demonstration to your supervisor whether or not you are ready to move up.

5. Execute. Just envisioning a successful project is not enough.  Do not overpromise something you cannot deliver.  Be realistic about your project plan; don’t try to be a hero.  If you engage in a project and do not deliver, it will be worse than if you did nothing to try advance your career.  

The key to creating your own alternative route upwards is to showcase, to your supervisor and others in the company, your hidden talents.  You are a walking advertisement of the talent you bring to the company.  If your project is successful and has provided something positive to the company based on your own initiative, your efforts will get noticed.  When companies identify talent they look for ways to keep you satisfied within the company. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 7:53 pm and is filed under Job Performance, Workplace. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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