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:

1. Status updates: Regular, concise updates on progress
2. Demo your work: Present at team meetings, tech talks
3. Document decisions: Write design docs, ADRs, post-mortems
4. Share learnings: Blog posts, knowledge sharing sessions
5. 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

1. Align on expectations: What does next level look like specifically?
2. Share your goals: Make your promotion aspirations known
3. Regular check-ins: Use 1:1s to discuss progress
4. Ask for feedback: What gaps exist? What would make the case stronger?
5. 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 examples
• references/brag-document-guide.md - Weekly/monthly tracking templates and tips
• references/win-categorization.md - Multi-dimensional win classification framework
• references/manager-perspective.md - What managers look for, how to align

Related Skills

• career-progression - Level expectations and progression paths
• career-strategy - Internal vs external growth decisions
• interview-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

Version History

• v1.0.0 (2025-12-26): Initial release

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Last Updated

Date: 2025-12-26 Model: claude-opus-4-5-20251101