How’s your career management strategy?

You’re performing well in your role. Your stock is on the rise. Your boss is your biggest fan. People are starting to notice you. You’re making strong relationships and you’re making your mark around the company. It really feels like your career is on the right track.

Then it happens. Your boss is moving on. The reasons could be varied. He’s been fired. He’s retiring. He’s been promoted or reassigned.

Should I go for it? Am I ready? What is the competition? Am I dreaming about actually getting that job?

If you are a solid performer in your organization, you’ll likely be faced with this dilemma at some point in your career. Assuming your goal is upward mobility in your career, it is a natural reflex to begin thinking about yourself in that role you currently report to, seeing yourself in that chair, and making the decisions.

But can I get it? Will the company pick me? Do I really want to go through all of that work to try for the role if I’m going to be rejected? After all, it’s probably a long shot that they’ll pick me anyway, right? Should I toss my hat in the ring?

Yeah, you should.

Unless you work in an established and streamlined organization that has been growing without much adversity, your great performance alone isn’t going to be enough to assure your promotion into the role. Organizations that have a culture of promoting top performers up the linear ladder are few and far between, and you probably don’t work for that company. It is much more likely that your boss is moving on because there is a desire for some degree of change in the current management hand of his team. Even if he was promoted, leadership will likely focus on the behaviors they’d like to change more than the ones they want to sustain. If your boss is moving on for any other reason, then change is all leadership will be focusing on.

But me? Really? Do I have a chance? Maybe I’ll apply but I’m not going to go all in. After all, getting rejected is pretty rough. I’ll make sure I don’t set myself up for too much disappointment. I’ll just dip my toe in the water.

Actually, you should go for it. Really go for it. All in.

Here is a little known fact about how you are considered for career advancement in your organization. Your boss thinks about your career advancement opportunities the most. Maybe 5% of his thinking is about your career. Maybe. The rest of his thinking is about your performance against your sales targets, your customers, your projects. All of these center on how these things intersect with his priorities. At the management levels above your boss, nobody is thinking about you and your career potential. Nobody. They have their own priorities. They are thinking about your boss the same way he is thinking about you. They let your boss do all the thinking about you.

If you are spending any time wondering how that thing you just did so well reflects on your career potential to your boss’s bosses, it doesn’t. Stop wondering about that. The business world is far too busy for anyone to go to that much effort to think about your interests. There are exceptions, but those are rare.

So that brings you back to the right now. Your boss’s job. Why should you go for it?

Even if you are not successful in actually winning the job, there is no better opportunity to put yourself on display for upper management, human resources, and any other functional participants in the hiring process. If you are able to make it through the screening rounds and get to the interview stage, you’ll have people who wouldn’t otherwise have time to think about you now compelled to get to know you. You might be up against internal candidates, external candidates, or perhaps even a ringer who has already been preselected, and you’re getting an interview as a courtesy to internal candidates. It doesn’t matter. This is your chance to demonstrate what you’re all about. Why you matter. Why your company can’t succeed without you, and why it needs your performance in a consequential leadership role. Right now.

Don’t just mail it in. Prepare. Study. Take an outsider’s view on the company, your division, the team you’ll manage. What is happening now in your business? It’s not all good. Management can see the sales numbers. They know what’s good. What isn’t good? What’s broken and how would you fix it? Who would you involve in your solutions? What are the potential outcomes of the change you would recommend? What is the impact to the team, the division, the company?

Work your network. Let influencers know that you are competing for the job. Their conversations with the hiring team will have an impact. It’s one thing to directly persuade a decision maker that you are competent and qualified. It’s quite another if they hear that several times from other voices whom they trust. That’s really how risky decisions get made. That extra validation takes the risk out of the decision and diminishes the attractiveness of alternative choices.

Remember, every level of management cares about how the level below them can support their priorities, their success. That’s what the management team who is interviewing you wants to hear also. How are you going to help them achieve their objectives? Don’t make them translate your accomplishments into a fuzzy picture of how you are likely to behave and perform in the new role. Tell them the results that you’ll produce in the new role, in terms that they’ll understand. Top line, bottom line, ROI, expense management, etc. Make it easy for them to understand what you’re all about. They want to know what they’re buying and why. It’s the most important outcome of the hiring decision.

Let’s skip what happens next if you win the position. That’s another article.

If you are unsuccessful, be gracious. Thank the hiring team for their consideration of you. Ask for feedback on what you could have done better, or what you can work on for the next opportunity. Reiterate that you are committed to the company, and you want to contribute to help the organization win in any way you can. Express your support to the success of the selected candidate.

You have made your impression. Now, when senior management does have a chance to think about folks two levels below, you will come to mind. You are familiar to them now. There is a personal connection. These are people after all. We are all wired to think about the people we know and have made an impression on us. You now have a leg up.

At some point in the future, your company will again come looking for a candidate. There will be an opening. There’s a good chance that opening will occur because there is a problem that the management needs to solve.

They will look in your direction. It’s been my experience that the time invested in going all in for that opportunity that may have been a long shot will pay off. It paid off for me once.

So just go for it. All the way. You aren’t just interviewing for the open job. You’re establishing your brand. Own it.

Lead well.

(Please share your comments below.)

Click to visit Jim’s book page:

“The Modern Compassionate Leader – 12 Essential Characteristics of the Rising Sales Leader”

Follow Jim on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.

© Jim Martin and www.jamesmichaelmartin.com, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jim Martin and www.jamesmichaelmartin.com