Ask HN: How to self-promote at work?
Being able to sell yourself/self-promote at work is one of the key secrets to being super successful. How does one go about doing this?
1. Have a boss who doesn't take the credit for your work. If your direct manager is a decent person they'll put your work in front of leadership and attribute it to you. This has a very positive impact on your career.
2. Change job 'often', where often is a cadence that doesn't make it look like you're running away from things. Your best opportunity for self-promotion that has a high impact on your career is in a job interview.
However, I'll add a third insight - try to define success in a way that means you're feeling like you're moving upwards even if it's not recognized externally. Taking pride in the work you do, improving your skills, volunteering for challenging projects, etc really helps you feel like you're progressing, and that really helps with #2 above.
And if none of that works just pretend HN karma is an important metric. It works for me.
It is not up to an employee to choose a boss. So really, the only solution to this issue is your number 2 statement -> change jobs often. This will get you away from a shitty boss, (and a good one). You have to get out from under a shitty boss. That is the only solution.
So really, your number 1 should be: Never work for a shitty boss. Transfer laterally or find a new job if you thing your shitty boss is going to be your shitty boss for more than 1 to 1.5 years.
If you can't get out from under a shitty boss because you must stay in a same location and there are no other job opportunities, or you have a job so well-paying that you will never get a high-income job like this and you have high-income requirements like private schools for your kids, then you just have to eat the shit and pretend you like it. Get your enjoyment outside of work.
* In team meetings, always speak your opinion but do it respectfully. People who are silent will likely get passed over for promotions. Unfortunately, this is how it works most of the time. If you are the silent type, schedule as many 1 on 1 meetings as possible. See below.
* Do not embarrass any coworkers in public. If you must, do it privately.
* Make your boss look good. It's hard to move up if your boss doesn't like you.
* Ally with the people who are important. Set up 1 on 1s with them. Talk to them. Ask them how you can help them. Praise their work. Generally, let them know that you exist and what you're doing to help make money.
These things work much better if you're generally competent, of course.
I know I also gave the advice to make your boss look good, which is plan A. If plan A doesn't work because your boss doesn't advocate for you in return, then you need to leap over your boss. Develop a relationship with your boss' boss so that you could ask to either get promoted to a position equal to your boss, take your boss' position, or transfer to a different boss.
Right question is ‘how do I get my contributions to be well understood.’
For that, you need to emphasize numbers. Every project, every task, every epic you ship has, at its heart, the goal to improve some metric in your business.
Do you understand what those metrics are? Do you understand why they are important to the business?
If the answer is “no”, then you’re doing things out of order. You can’t possibly hope to get others to understand your work if you yourself don’t understand it.
When you can say “I helped reduced latency by 237 ms”, that’s a good metric. Even better if you are curious enough to then connect it to the outcome - “which led to 17% longer sessions by users.”
When you master the numbers, then self-promotion becomes a by product of your work. E.g., at the team meeting “I understand our goal is to increase flip flops by 10%, is that right? Well, I think we can do it because when I was on that project with Team B last year we increased flib flabs by 12%.”
Summary: don’t self-promote, instead understand and communicate your impact on metrics.
If things do go sideways, the executive team does still appreciate properly managed retrospectives. You can both take responsibility for something and have it not be a shortcoming of you personally. "I could have suggested a change to process A to avoid this.", "I could have arranged a meeting on the topic earlier. Formalizing this as a step in the future will prevent this." People are constantly protecting their egos a that level and when an idea they signed up for doesn't go the way they want it helps to have someone who can unpack what occurred who doesn't go around looking for someone to blame. *Focus on process, not people* is something I carried with me from the nuclear industry. It helps to divorce egos from trying to address a valid problem with the org.
To me, performing and excelling at your job should be sufficient to make you visible. In a flat structure you're known as the responsibile party for project X, therefore, the self-promotion is happening automatically, as opposed to a deeply nested structure where your department's name is linked to the success of project X, and within the department your team takes the credit, and to be visible you'll have to actively self-promote.
Yours is a broad generalisation, and one that has hurt my career in the past because of senior people who inevitably follow this chain of reasoning: "Indians are good at playing the self-promotion game --> shrikant is Indian, and he's not bigging himself up enough --> he must not be good enough --> meh, average rating, let's move on to the next person".
This hasn't happened everywhere, so I suppose it is down to organisational culture as well.
But also I guess my point is: even if broad generalisations hold "true", it's not cool to apply it to an individual.
In an ideal company, people see through fake results and baseless self promotion. If you’re seeing super successful people which are only good at overselling their results, that’s a bad smell.
Get your work recognized: write a brag document https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/
HN discussion 2019 (78 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20665225
- Highlight what your other team members did and how you were there (helping, helped, gratitude).
- Try to highlight things that usually gets ignored. For instance, the DevOps that writes awesome documentation or the front-end developer hacked to get around some design quirks.
This is a long-tail activity. Be the person to bring their good work out to others. You don't have to be talking or "marketing" around but this is a silent but extremely powerful weapon. Of course, people will start to notice you and will definitely want to know what you do. By then, you won't need to.
The result is that I often use second-person pronouns to take credit for work I did alone. Once I got called out on it during a job interview, and I had to clarify that no, in fact, I alone was responsible for implementing this great feature I just got through telling you about. The 'we' was a figure of speech I used because I don't want to sound like a pompous ass who takes credit for all the work, even if I deserve credit for all the work, because I did all the work.
Simply using the right pronouns can be a subtle yet effective signal for the purposes of self-promotion.
This doesn't necessarily mean backstabbing and team-hopping, although that does happen in some dysfunctional companies. It means writing up ideas or problems into plans that your team can take and work on, with your name attached; killing off bad projects and fixing timesinks quickly; committing to other team members when they have good ideas, so that you're overall more successful, and to encourage reciprocity; and setting up processes to either minimise distractions, share them around, or make the distraction an actual KPI.
You've only ever had to hit your deadlines and justify the projects you take on (and be right). Easier said than done, but when done no amount of brown nosing from others can win. Don't even dip a single toe in that tar pit and you'll be fine.
You cannot live in ignorance of what metrics are being tracked or what the leadership's goals are. Ask questions and you'll get answers and then execute. Easy to learn, hard to master.
I do it by engaging with colleagues in the following way:
“You need help? Of course I’ll help you with that.”
“Yes, I helped Carl with that thing”.
“Carl and I build this thing, it was his idea, I did x”
“Yo Carl, I like working with you. I have this idea, can you help me?”
“No, I don’t have time to help you with the same thing that I helped Carl with. I am working on x right now, maybe later”.
Also seeking advice from colleagues is a pretty low key way of self promoting. You are showing that you are working on stuff.
So be generous and at the same time set boundaries so people won’t take advantage of you. I would err on the generous side, my experience is people seldom take advantage.
- World class at what you do
- Humble
- Helpful
- Someone with a reputation for solving problems, not causing more.
The rest works itself out.
Advice to the contrary either comes from McKinsey consultants or Tim Ferris-level grifters.
2) More specifically, that work needs to have direct and obvious impact on the business. The quality of your code is less important than the problem it solves / revenue it produces.
3) If you have aspirations to lead, then learn to collaborate. Learn to lead.
4) Learn to listen. You'll learn more. You'll understand when and what to self-promote.
5) Related to 2, 3, and 4, learn what the business values. If you going to self-promote be certain to be in the business' sweet spot, else no one is going to care.
- when someone complements you accept it and talk to them about your challenges in the project to make sure they don't think it was a breeze and you are proud of your work.
- present info on it to your group or "announce it" if it's something like a utility or internal tool.
- Talk at meetings rather than flipping through CNN, realize there are stupid questions however if you're trying to become better known.
- Don't be shy, but try to not be a braggart, confidence is sexy
When the time comes for reviews, you will have everything structured.
* Be vulnerable - see Brene Browns resources on that topic
* Share your accomplishments and also failures and how you learned from them
* Involve more people into what you are doing. Word of mouth works and if you are doing good job everyone would like to work with you
* Promote others - "do ut des" - I give, so that you may give
S = Sharing your work
H = Hone in what you are working on
A = Ask clarifying questions and get early feedback
R = Read what others in industry are doing and try to implement if it relates to your work as PoC.
E = Engage with others .. learn from their experiences and contribute / give back
My advice, in the context of large organization (i.e. more than 50-100 engineers):
1. regularly discuss about expectations for next level/grade with your manager. Number one mistake I see are people talking about this 2 weeks before the evaluation period. Do not wait for evaluation period.
2. make it easy for your manager: ask him the information he needs, ask him who needs to understand your accomplishment, etc. Again, do not wait for evaluation period to start those discussions.
3. In the long term (your whole career), good outcomes and getting better at your job matters. But in the short/mid term (within your current job), self promotion matters.
In a large organization, just doing good work is not enough, for the following reasons
1. your promotion will depend on people who are not intimate with your accomplishment anymore.
2. the definition of "good work" is very context dependent: depends on your org, depends on the time, etc. What does your company value ? E.g. in most companies, the closer you are to what the execs value, the easier it is to explain what you do. Money is the obvious one, but that's not the only one. In some organizations, doing something with no business impact but very technically challenging can be rewarded. In other companies, this is not rewarded at all.
3. bonus and promotion budget: the more senior the role, the more it becomes a 0 sum game: for you to be promoted, somebody will not be. There is always a budget, people will fight for it.
4. as companies grow, there tends to be more standard processes on promotion. In practice, such systems will always reduce the variance. PG explained this well http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
The above is why in practice, you need your manager's help to understand what is valued and when. Good managers will know what is needed for you to be promoted to next level, and will help you building such a case.
my 2 cents, as a director-level manager, managing around 50-60 people and having been a manager for 5-6 years now, after ~ 12 years as IC in quite technical roles
If you don't work to get noticed, people whose speciality is to scream and shout like babies while having absolutely zero technical knowledge are going to dominate. And there are a lot of them.
You don't even have to do that all the time, a few stern words once in a while are enough to put impostors in their place.
It's a win/win/win situation; I learnt lots by building them, they help developers build good services by not having to reinvent the wheel, and they get my name out there.
1. Performance (10%)
2. Image (30%)
3. Exposure (60%)
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pie%20performance%20image%20exposu...
Work to a technically good level, always wanting to improve. Communicate well. Be positive and polite with your team. Be confident. These things will get you far.
Just do good work with and for your team. The rest will follow.
For me the breakthrough in my career was making sure the right person knew I was interested in a particular project, but that would have meant nothing if I hadn’t already built a reputation for good work.
As an example, if you often hop on calls and assist team members, let it be known to your manager. That's self promotion.
Collaborate with your PO. If your team presents their work to other stakeholders regularly, volunteer to present. These are different ways to self promote by simply doing your job.
If you get published on media or give presentations at conferences, word will get around, and fast. All the higher ups will know you. You will get major respect because you will be seen as an industry expert and leading edge person. Even if you talk about easy stuff, or whatever you know. There are always people who won't know what you know.
If you feel you don't have the stature - you do - write and speak on what you know. A third party platform, not your own.
But, to start, it is always great to pair up with a well-known industry expert. Just contact a bunch of them and ask if they want to team up. Most won't but all you need is one to say yes, then you put this on your resume and other people will want to team up with you as you are building up your speaking and writing credentials.
I've written before that I know one guy, he speaks at any event where there are 2 or more people.
But do writing and public speaking long enough and you will get to be known to everyone. Start getting bigger and bigger venues and publications.
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The other way is to learn the power dynamics at the company when you start working there. Never become friends with the first person to introduce themselves to you. Don't clique up and get ito that backstabbing clique shit or have to hate people in this clique or that clique because your clique hates them. You should be clique-less with everyone.
You should be friendly to all, but not friends, despite that some people will say that they have made lifelong friends from work. This post is not about that, it is about self promotion and being super successful. You take time to learn who has power in any company. NOT those who seem to have power, but those who actually do. Then over time, you become an associate of those who can help you. I've done this and I will tell you what - you will shoot up the org chart if a powerful person likes you. They will tell all their powerful friends about you, too. They will test you, see what you do, will work behind the scenes, you still have to prove yourself to them that you are not a flashy flash-in-the-pan person, but can deliver results. If you do, then you will fly up the org chart to more and more responsible positions. And of course, you have to make yourself fit into their style. Are those power people laidback and relaxed? Or are they all focused, brief, fast? Adjust your style to them. If someone's a talker, be a talker, if they are no nonsense person, be no nonsense person, etc. One thing to be careful about is not to break the chain of command. If there is breaking, it has to be done by the general to you, not you to the general unless absolutely mandatory. So you have to work your way up powerful people, but only be work social, as people fall out of favor you will need to find others - you have to have a network. So always be friendly to all. Remember, a CEO of a Fortune 500 company might be friends with the parents of the mailroom clerk and go to their house and talk to the mailroom clerk who they've known since the clerk was a baby, and that mailroom clerk might say that you are a supreme asshole and everyone hates you to the CEO, and you will never go anywhere then.
Always be ready to talk to powerful players if the opportunity arises. Sometimes the opportunity will spontaneously will arise. You meet them at a restaurant or a friend in common or he or she starts a conversation in the elevator with you in the morning as you go up to your floor. It's ok to go around the chain of command in this case, as they were the ones that initiated. Get ready to speak intelligently and not mumble or hem and haw. Take your cue from him or her, but have some conversation ready to go. If you suck at small talk, then I suggest that you go onto Youtube and watch and rewatch youtube videos on how to make smalltalk, how to not be socially awkward, and watch a lot more than just one video - watch many. It is a skill that you can develop. Test out the skills you learn on non-work people and see if they work for you. Master one, then move onto another skill/technique.
Those are the two things that I know will make you super successful, for sure: 1. Public figure - speaking and writing, and
2. develop relations with powerful people in the company, not just anyone.
*Credit-taking boss*
If you have a good idea, create a proposal before you tell anyone the entire idea. Hold your cards close to your vest. Don't just tell your boss and let him or her take the credit - bosses taking-credit shit. You put your name and the creation date on it. Lots of employees just like to talk about things and get the ideas flowing. With a credit-grabbing boss, you can't do this. Even with a boss that gives credit, it's still a good idea to follow the same exact procedure. Things can always get fucked up, like if your great boss get's replaced 1 month in and a new credit-taking boss takes his or her place and claims the idea as his or her own. You do NOT want others taking credit for your great ideas, no matter what.
In order to make it seem like you're NOT going behind his or her back, which is important especially with a credit-taking boss, make sure you tell your boss that you are running a few different thoughts on what some issues in your process and you want to have a quick conversation with other people. Make sure they are in other groups in the company that don't report to your boss. If your boss asks you what it is, say you are looking at a number of different thins and ideas. Be vague. If the boss insists what exactly it is, make sure you create a fake or dummy idea and tell the boss that one, and you have a few other vague ideas that haven't really taken form. This way, again, you show you're not going around their back, which control freaks and credit-takers hate. Then you go around and talk to 5 or 8 or 10 people but be vague as you can but ask some specifics that don't give your idea away. All this is just a show. You already know what you want to do. It's all a show. It's smoke and mirrors to throw off others off the scent and you can get credit without getting fucked by your boss or others. When all this preliminary bullshit show is done, then you create a proposal/report, and you put your name and the date on it and you distribute it to all the others who "helped" you, and to your boss. This way, your name and the date are definitively on the proposal and a lot of other people who "helped" and also their bosses will know about it, and that you did it, so the credit-taker can't take all the credit. He or she must at least share credit. You write the report in a way so they can't take credit, too.
So in the executive summary on the first page, you write something along the lines of:
"I noticed xyz and pdq and wondered if there was a solution. I started putting together some frameworks as shown in Appedix A (include dates, like 2/1/23). On Wednesday 2/15/23 after some thought, I asked my boss, Fred Asshole, if I could gather cross-departmental information from Jack Smack, Polly Golly, Fred Head, Bill Mill, and Percy Mercy. I appreciate Jack, Polly, Fred, Bill, and Percy's contribution."
"What I thought and discovered was: xyz pdq abc etc"
and then write the whole proposal as normal. But at the very first page, the very first paragraph, you want to say how the project came about and that you were the source. Don't bury this on the 4th or 8th page. First paragraph.
This may require a job change, even if you're happy with you salary and benefits and even tasks.
2. Make sure you understand the value structures of people arround you. In particular your boss and other decision makers, but also your peers and subordinates (if you have them). If possible, try to align your values and preferences with your surroundings. To an extent, don't come off as spineless. But it's better to make your disagreements known when it contradicts non-essential preferences.
If you contradict values that form part of the identity of some influential person around you, it may be almost impossible to ally with them.
3) For your work efforts, focus your output on activities that support the values of those you would like to have a good relationship with. Often that means make them look good. But it could apply to any number of other values, too. That could be working hours, code style/language, git patterns, keeping schedules/promises, etc.
4) Where your values do not overlap with others, don't expose them. Those could be political or technical or something else.
5) If some individual occupies some niche in the organization, be careful about acting as a competitor for their spot, unless you seriously want to challenge them for it. And expect to gain an enemy when you do.
6) Time your efforts wisely. Don't solve problems nobody cares about, unless they will blame you when they start to care about them. When people feel pain, though, being seen as the one that make the problems go away can be great self promotion.
This could involve putting in extra effort and/or if it can be resolved by leveraging some unique skills or talents that you may have.
Be mindful that this can make someone lose face. If those who would lose face are people you want to be allied with, it may be good to use some discretion.
7) If people take advantage, and exploit your output without providing proper credit, dont spend more energy on them than necessary. Focus your efforts to assist the goals of those who show appreciation in public or other ways that matter.
8) Volunteer to do presentations, internal knowledge sharing, coaching and similar work that allow you to appear as an authority, and take these activities extra seriously.
Do this both internally and externally if you can. External presentations may be the key to your next career step.
9) If you have side projects or things you've done in the past that you're proud of, just mention them in passing in situation where they're relevant, and without bragging. Reserve detailed elaboration to those who seem genuinely interested.
Let's say you contributed something to an open source project your team is using, it's much better that the team hears that from that person than from you.
However, if you DO have to bring such stuff up, make sure you hide your pride about it and focus on some other aspect (a compical element, the passion you have for some topic,etc). Beware, though, people are pretty good at identifying humblebragging.