What to do if you get passed over for a promotion

It’s that time of year again at my firm…

Where we rack and stack our people and difficult decisions have to be made. That’s the real business part of doing business that people often overlook or just don’t understand.

When you work at a place where you have a disproportionate amount of high achievers, inevitably some people are going to be frustrated with the outcomes.

And inevitably some are going to be straight up mad and feel like the system is rigged against them.

I’ve written about this a few times, like this one and this one here.

I haven’t had my review yet, so I may even be one of those people this year for all I know.

But that’s not why I’m bringing this up.

Instead, I bring this up because it always feels like a good time to revist some things that people often forget.

You know how I say that activity doesn’t equally productivity in your job search? You know what I’m talking about, the “I applied to 500 jobs and have gotten 0 interviews” posts?

What they fail to mention (or maybe they don’t realize) is their resume is trash…

So it also goes when you’re doing a job. You may have busted your tail all year long doing the best you could possibly do…

But… what was your actual impact?

How did you compare relative to your peers?

That’s the thing about high performing environments. The bar for differentiating yourself is much higher.

Now onto the second thing

If you’re feeling like you know it’s not going to work out, you can choose to quit and do something else.

The economy may make some people feel like they need to stay somewhere they hate, but the truth is people are still getting hired.

If you do leave though… maybe you’ll be happier, maybe not. But I encourage you to take a close look at all the facts before making a decision.

There’s no point in being unhappy but there’s no point in shooting yourself in the foot because of an emotional reaction either.