So, you were turned down for a promotion
Rejection is painful in any context, but you can emerge from it stronger than you were before
Getting rejected for a promotion feels awful, but is not a disaster. It’s not even a setback. It’s probably the greatest opportunity to grow that you’ll have in the next few years. Instead of being a bummer on all of your Zoom socials, here’s how you can realize that opportunity.
Rejection and Response
When your manager comes to you with the rejection, they’ll give you a reason. I have a prediction: it’ll probably sound like complete BS1. Here are a few of the classics:
“You haven’t had a broad enough impact on the organization.”
“You haven’t demonstrated enough independence in your projects.”
“The work you’ve taken on has had smaller scope than what is expected of the next level.”
“You haven’t built up enough consensus around your ideas.”
None of these sound very satisfying, because none of them are immediately actionable. And the handful that are actionable, you’ve already done! Maybe this sounds familiar: “I’m doing the projects that you gave me! You said I’ve done good work, so why aren’t I being rewarded for it?”
I have an alternate suggestion that will put you on a better path: thank them.
What can you control?
Look, all of your objections and feelings around this are completely valid. Maybe you feel robbed, maybe you’re angry, and you have every right to be so.
Your manager could have given you all this feedback months ago, before promotion decisions were finalized. They could have given you more impressive-looking projects. They could have written a better proposal for your promotion, or argued more convincingly on your behalf in the calibration meeting.
All of this is outside your immediate control. Your response will be the same, regardless of the mistakes your manager made or the hoops they want you to jump through. They hold the keys. But you are anything but helpless, and there is so much you can do even with the worst of managers.
Extract better feedback
Better feedback is buried somewhere in your manager’s brain, and you can tease it out with probing questions.
Set the stage for your questions.
Earnestly thank them for what they’ve given you. Management is hard, and giving critical feedback is harder. You want to make it clear that you’re not trying to trap them, or prove them wrong. You’re all on the same side, here. You just want to understand what happened, so you can improve going forward.
Ask questions until you understand their viewpoint.
Here’s a handful to get you started.
“What are some examples of the behavior that you saw, or didn’t see?”
“Have you ever received this sort of feedback in your career? What did you do with it?”
“How far along the company’s promotion process did I get?”
“If I need more independence, how can I show this? Ask fewer questions? Where/when/how should I get help?”
“If I need broader impact, who hasn’t heard of me or my work? What kind of projects do those people tend to care about?”
“If my projects are too small, what bigger projects can I do? Why haven’t I seen those yet?”
Importantly, you don’t need to agree with their viewpoint; it’s useful to know why they hold it.
Confirm your understanding
Complex communication (e.g. most feedback) gets lost in translation. Take a minute to breathe, review your notes, and reflect your understanding of your manager’s expectations back to them.
If you go back and forth with them a bit on this, that’s perfectly healthy. Once you grok their perspective, ask for some time to think about this and get the perspective of other people you’ve worked with. Reassure them that you’re not trying to go over their head (like most humans, managers are insecure sometimes).
Shop it around your network
Your manager’s opinion matters more than most, but they are only one person with limited perspective. There are lots of other people who are likely to have an interesting contrasting take on all of this.
Your current teammates, your current skip-manager, former teammates or former managers… each of them has interacted with you in a different context, and will see the feedback you extracted from your manager in a different light. So show it to them, and ask your network what they think.
“Does this match your perception of me?”
“Have you received or given feedback like this? Where did you go from there?”
“What would you do with this, in my situation?”
None of them will be weirded out by this. If anything, they’ll be flattered that you came to them for advice! Try to ask a variety of people: some who are close to you, some who are more detached, some who are famously empathetic and others who are, ahem, notoriously critical.
Beware that plenty of people in your network will, by default, assume that you’re there for emotional support. You surely need some of that, and you should take as much as you need. But you also want perspective and advice, so thank them for their support, and make your goal explicit.
Validate your findings
Of course, this wide net of feedback you cast is another link in a chain of complex communications. So as before, you’ll need to validate your findings by documenting them and presenting them to your manager.
There’s a chance they’ll disagree with your summary. This is exciting, because it means you’re getting new feedback from the person whose opinions matters the most! You’ll have to repeat the steps above, but it’ll be worth it.
Alternatively, they might agree completely… which is also exciting, because now you have a path forward that your manager supports! I guess that means both outcomes are exciting.
Check back continuously
Be assured it’s not a one-and-done. Reference it in every one-on-one!
Please forgive the rhyme; I swear it occurred naturally and Liz said I should “lean into the cringe.”
You should feel comfortable referencing that summary in every one-on-one you have with your manager. Point out your wins and your roadblocks. Give them a chance to disagree, clear your path, and celebrate.
Some people respond the opposite way: assuming there's something fundamentally wrong with them that makes them undeserving of promotion, maybe ever (It's me, hi). For now, if that resonates, skip to Extract better feedback. I’ll address those insecurities in another post.
Thank you Simon for sharing this! In my experience (Google), promotion is a game in and of itself. I'm of the opinion that it has as much to do w/ how well you play the game as your hard qualifications.
Many qualified candidates do not end up getting promoted (at least not on the 1st try) -- just a fact of life. What I like about the Google process is that -- upon the 1st rejection, you have a list of 2~3 concrete things to work on (also, Google uses a committee based approach to dilute the power of a single manager). As long as you adequately demonstrate that you've done those 2~3 things asked by the 1st committee, the 2nd committee cannot reject you, and they can't add any new items to the list. Hence, your chance of getting promoted on a subsequent try increases significantly ^___^
Thanks for this Simon! There are so many things that I have yet to experience for myself as an early software engineer, and this article gave me a lot to think about in terms of how I can approach those situations when the time comes. I found your example questions particularly helpful. Even outside of promotion discussions, I think these are such great questions to ask in regular 1-1s in order for me and my manager to better understand each other.
Looking forward to your next one! 😁