Ask the expert: Identify long-term goals and seek advice

How can you discuss promotion when it's your boss' job you covet? DR MARIE WILSON, head of management and employment relations at the University of Auckland Business School and a veteran of 20 years in corporate management and small business, offers some helpful ideas.

Q: Is it okay to be open about being ambitious? My job is all right, but it's not what I see myself doing for the rest of my career. I intended speaking to my boss about my promotion prospects but the problem is, it is her job that I'm really after.


A: Certainly it's okay to communicate your ambition, but you might widen your sights beyond your supervisor's job.

Discuss your long-term goals and then ask for help in identifying the skills you will need to develop and the types of experiences that will prepare you for your goal.

Discuss what type of opportunities exist for you to gain those skills and experiences within your current company.

Ask for your supervisor's judgment of your chances of promotion in the company and what kind of time-line is realistic for your development.

If your company has an HR manager, they may be an important resource.

Make sure your time frame is realistic: many people who are ambitious may also be impatient and/or unrealistic about promotion and development time-lines.

You can often gain new skills and experiences within your current job, as well as demonstrating your readiness for promotion.

Q: The firm I work for is the best in its field, and I took a job a few levels below my capabilities when the opportunity came up rather than wait. Now I am stuck in the wrong rut and I'm wondering whether I shouldn't have waited.

After months and months and repeated promises, my GM refuses to send me on further training that would get me promotion.

A: I'm not quite clear on the issues here. On the one hand, your question suggests that you are over-qualified for your existing position, and on the other you seem to be wanting training to qualify for the next level up.

If you are over-qualified and overdue for promotion, why do you need more training to be considered?

Most firms expect employees to fully master their existing job and be making a real contribution before they are promoted to another level or the company makes further investments.

You are unlikely to have achieved this in a matter of months.

I would suggest that you sit down with your manager and discuss your qualifications and whether they fit with your existing job or other jobs in the company. Then perhaps you can agree on a realistic time frame for training and advancement.

Q: I am a recent graduate with a bachelor of international communication degree, from Unitec.

It is a broad-based degree covering areas from social sciences, arts, business and language.

This is a degree that signals the new millennium, in that it focuses on the here and now but also looks at how can we better things for people in the future.

My question is: how can I make agencies who represent the employers understand that we are the best thing since sliced bread?

Being a mature graduate, I have also got life experience and have worked throughout my degree and looked after my family.

This type of experience doesn't seem to count for much.


A: Although many employers may credit you with a certain degree of pluck, persistence and intelligence for having completed a degree, it's up to you to explain the skills and knowledge you have gained.

Start your CV with a summary of your skills and abilities, linking them to both your education and experience. Focus on your achievements and skill development in the most concrete terms that you can.

Include your abilities to work in teams, cope with stress and juggle priorities, which you should have honed in combining study with work and a family.

Put your research skills to work by researching potential employers, and make sure your letter of interest links your skills to things that are important to them.

* Send your questions to juliemiddleton@nzherald.co.nz