Signs It’s Time to Move Up in Your Company

If you’re a seasoned employee who’s worked for an extended period of time at the same company, you may sense that it’s time to move up. Maybe you’re feeling uninspired by your current job responsibilities, annoyed with your coworkers, or increasingly frustrated watching your colleagues achieve promotion around you.

Here are a few additional signs that it might be time to make a move upstairs:

• You’ve been typecast. Perhaps you are a particularly skilled presenter, and that’s how you’re known. But if you have other talents, it’s time someone recognized them. If your colleagues have pigeonholed you and your job, now is a good time to break out and do something different, preferably on a higher rung of the ladder.
  
• You’re doing more than one job. Just because you’ve been given more responsibilities doesn’t mean that you’ve advanced. If you’re spending more time pushing paper and less time managing, then it could be a sign that your skills and talents would be more appreciated at a higher level.
  
• You have too much free time. Oh, what some of us would do with more time, but not if it means being idle at work. Someone could mistake your free time for unnecessary and frowned-upon R&R. It could be because you finish projects more quickly than your peers. Or perhaps you’ve become proficient in a particular area, one that upper management could use more wisely. In either case, it’s a sign that you need to make a change.
  
• You’ve achieved an advanced degree. You’ve been working at a job by day and going to school at night. Finally, you’ve got that MBA or other advanced degree. Combine that with workplace experience and you have a solid case for advancement and promotion.
  
• You’re thinking about quitting. Often, people wait until a job is unbearable before they finally decide to leave. If you’re just starting to think about jumping to another organization, it could be time for you to look upstairs. Once you leave a company, it’s not easy to return, so you want to make sure that first you’ve exhausted all of the viable and attractive options inside.
  
• You’re moody all the time. Sometimes when you feel stuck it’s accompanied by a bad mood, usually brought on by chronic frustration. If you’re feeling like this on a consistent basis, it could mean that you’ve outgrown your current job. This could be due to a number of reasons. Maybe you’ve outgrown the work, or the jobs higher up are clearly more interesting.
  
• All your pals are in upper management. If most of the people you started with have already been promoted and you feel that you have an equal breadth of experience and skills, then it’s probably time for you to move up too. It may be painful to admit that others have advanced more quickly, but this shouldn’t stop you from doing what you need to do to join them.
  
• You’re the only one in your group who gets results. Treating everyone fairly is a given — at least, that’s the way it’s supposed to go. But what if your work is stellar? What if your boss consistently holds you up as a model for success? That could be a sign, perhaps the strongest one yet, that it’s time to move up. Stop waiting for your supervisor to kick you upstairs. Instead, document the times your name has been associated with good work and later, with written proof in hand, express your desire to be promoted.