It’s the news that no finance professional wants to hear. Despite all the long hours that you’ve put in, all the extra projects you’ve volunteered for and all the CPD points you’ve notched up, you’re not going to be promoted. Not this time.
Inevitably the big question that this development will have you asking is: Why? And if someone you work with has got the nod ahead of you, the next question you will probably be torturing yourself with is: Why them and not me?
As you mull over these painful questions, you will inevitably end up doing plenty of soul searching, either on your own or with your friends and family, and quite possibly down the pub.
It goes without saying, however, that you are very unlikely to come up with an accurate assessment of your own abilities – either good or bad – after a few glasses of your favourite beverage. What’s more, excessive rumination is unlikely to shed any light on why you didn’t manage to scale the next rung of the career ladder and only leave you feeling bitter and demoralised.
So what should you be doing instead?
1 Think about what’s next
People are overlooked for promotion all the time and they still go on to achieve great things in their careers. Perhaps you’re not quite ready for the additional responsibility right now, but you might be ready in the future.
So, think about the skills and competencies that you will need to take on a more senior role and set about acquiring them. With accountants benefiting from high levels of career mobility at present, you are in a good position to ask your employer to invest in your development.
Even if they didn’t offer – or couldn’t offer – the promotion you dearly desired, they will almost certainly want to retain you.
2 Don’t see it as a missed opportunity
See it simply as an opportunity. Maybe the current career path you’re on isn’t quite right for you and you should be looking to do something different instead.
For my book, Reach the Top in Finance: The Ambitious Accountant’s Guide to Career Success, I interviewed Ronan Dunne, now chairman of Six Nations Rugby. Previously he was executive vice president and CEO of Verizon Consumer Group and CFO, then CEO, of Telefónica UK. Dunne advises against making any assumptions about the direction your career should take.
“A lot of finance people presume that they will stay in their current role until they are promoted to the next level up,” he explains. “So they have a narrow base of expertise, and their only option for promotion is landing their boss’s job.”
Instead he suggests they should get “a broad base of knowledge and experience that creates opportunities for them to be promoted”.
3 Ask for feedback
Do this even if you secretly don’t want to hear the answer. You are more likely to get honest feedback if you ask your manager to provide constructive advice on what you can do to improve your chances of gaining that crucial promotion in the future, rather than focus on why you lost out on this occasion.
If you were aiming for a partnership, sound out several partners in the partnership to find out why you weren’t seen as partner material. What can you do to build the experience they think you lack?
4 Don’t hand in your notice
Well, not straight away at least. If you have a skills gap, consider whether you would be more likely to plug that gap by staying in your current organisation for a while longer or whether you really do need to leave in order to develop yourself further.
In light of the current cost-of-living crisis and high demand for finance professionals, you might be tempted to jump ship as soon as possible for the highest-paying role you can find, but that might not be the best move for your career in the long term.
So, if you do decide to leave, don’t take the first role you see advertised. Instead, look around, talk to recruiters about the different opportunities that exist, and make sure you pick a job that will suit your values while helping you to further your ambitions.
There are very few people who can honestly say that they haven’t suffered career disappointments from time to time. So don’t let being passed over for promotion hold you back.
As Rachel Baillache, a former global head of people, performance and culture at KPMG International, says in my book: “I have seen senior managers who were passed over for partner once but were later promoted because they got good mentoring and support and access to new opportunities, which gave them a fresh perspective.”
Sally Percy is a finance journalist and author of Reach the Top in Finance: The Ambitious Accountant’s Guide to Career Success (Bloomsbury).
