How to Get Promoted (You Won’t)

Every year, millions of people ask how to get promoted. Every year the answer is the same. You don’t. Someone called Josh does, and Josh is younger than your car.

I have studied the corporate ladder for over a decade, mostly from the bottom, where the view is excellent if you enjoy shoes. What follows is the exact method I used to stay in the same role through three restructures, two rebrands and one away day involving a rope bridge and a facilitator who called us “family”.

Results are guaranteed. Not good results. Results.

1. STEP 1Do excellent work for four years.
2. STEP 2Train the new hire, because you're "so good with people."
3. STEP 3Watch the new hire become your manager.
4. STEP 4Attend her first one-to-one, in which she asks what you "want from your career."
5. STEP 5Set LinkedIn to "Open to Work," panic, and switch it off.
6. STEP 6Pretend to be excited about "new opportunities" at the restructure meeting.
7. STEP 7Become one of the new opportunities.