How I Excelled At My Job And Moved Up Faster Than Others

I sometimes see complaints in the personal finance community that bloggers focus too much on frugality and saving money and not enough on making more money.  There’s an endless number of posts about side hustling out there, but admittedly there are fewer about earning more at your W-2 job. 

That’s probably because jobs and careers are extremely diverse, and advice or tips for one job might not be applicable to others.  Saving money is easier to write about because we all buy food and clothes.  I excelled and moved up fast at my government job, way faster than most of my colleagues.  This post details how I did it, but first a little background on how I got there.

The Job That Didn’t Work

When I graduated college in the early 1990s America was still in a recession.  I was lucky to score a job at a small dotcom company in the very early days of the world wide web.  It was a startup, even though we didn’t use that term back then. 

Long hours, lots of coffee, and an expectation to perform.  That was the culture.

We billed clients in 15 minute increments, so if you effed off with your colleagues a lot that time had to be made up somewhere.  In hindsight it was chaotic and fun, but definitely a job meant for the young 20-something that I was.

The problem was we weren’t profitable yet and there was nowhere to move up.  I received glowing performance appraisals, but tiny raises.  Or none at all.  I was making $20k a year (the equivalent of what is now about $36,000 a year), well below the median in America.  There was nothing to get promoted into.  And as I continued to pour my life into the job with nothing to aim for I became disillusioned.

So when the federal government contacted me about a position I applied to three years prior, I took it.  I was immediately thrust into a massive hierarchical system with often arcane personnel practices. 

But the good news was there were tons of positions to get promoted into.  I quickly figured out how to get ahead in the government.  It’s not rocket surgery.

Show up and work really hard.  Many others don’t.

That’s the 100,000 foot view of course, and should probably be a guide for success in any endeavor.  But here are some more specific ways I got ahead and my job and moved up fast. 

How I Got Ahead 

Never bring your boss a problem without simultaneously bringing one or more possible solutions. The last thing a supervisor or manager wants is an employee coming to him or her with just a problem. “The system is down”, or “Our project is way behind schedule”.  What are you doing to fix it, or get it back on schedule?  Relaying a problem without a solution is essentially whining.  Don’t be a whiner, fix things.

Never stop learning. News flash, you don’t know everything, and you never will.  Continual learning does not necessarily mean formal school, although that’s an option.  For a five year period in my career (before smartphones) I took the DC Metro to work.  I was on trains and in stations for a total of about an hour and a half every day.  Did I sleep or read sports magazines?  No.  It was my time to read the trade publications of my industry.  I learned more from them than from anywhere else.  Staying current on industry trends helped me get ahead.  I wasn’t getting paid for that work.  It was my self development time.

Solve problems, fix things, and get involved in good projects that aren’t in your job description. More concisely, do more than is asked of you.  Don’t always ask permission, but know the culture and politics of your work place well before you do that, and do it wisely.

If your boss asks you to do something you think is stupid or a waste of time, do it anyway. Build trust with your boss.  Once you have that trust, then you can kindly suggest a better way the next time.  Most good bosses actually want push back and contrarian ideas, but they have to trust you first. 

Value diversity and seek it out. By this I mean real diversity.  That word has been co-opted and taken over in modern parlance to mean only a very small part of what diversity actually is.  Real and full diversity means seeking out diverse opinions, personalities, backgrounds, and working styles.  Listen to people who disagree with you.  Realize they just might be right, or at least have something to offer.  Avoid echo chambers and group-think at all costs.  Ask your colleagues in other departments if they think you’ve fallen victim to those traps.  Outsider opinions are often far more valuable, honest, and direct.

Be kind to everyone.  This can indeed be hard.  There’s lots of unkind people out there in the workplace.  Do your best to not reciprocate.

Realize that you often have to do the work of the position you want before you get the pay.  Self explanatory.

If you’re a supervisor or manager, don’t expect your subordinates to do anything you are not willing to do right beside them.  Do you need them to come in this weekend?  Well you better be there with them.

Never stop building your professional network. If some of the people in your network become friends too, that’s great.  But for your career, friends don’t matter.  Your network does.  I have solid relationships with folks who now work at Google and Amazon because they were formerly in my professional network at my job.  I doubt I’d ever seek a job with those companies, but it’s nice to know if I did I would have a champion to help me.

Just out-work everyone. I’m not advocating for 70-hour weeks and having no life, although I was guilty of those things in my career.  But work smarter, work harder, and optimize.  Don’t keep seeking a job you love all the time, those are kind of unicorny.  It might exist for a while but will probably be fleeting.  Find a job you like enough to pour your heart into.  Then crush it with your work ethic.

YMMV

These suggestions are a result of my experience.  Your mileage may vary.  But these are the things that helped me shoot up the ladder at my job way faster than my colleagues. 

Jobs obviously vary greatly and some professions require different political tactics or networking strategies. 

So chime in AF Readers – what helped you get ahead in your job?