13 PROVEN WAYS TO GAIN MORE VISIBILITY WITHIN YOUR COMPANY

There are lots of highly skilled, talented and hard working people sitting in companies and not getting what they deserve – either in terms of job advancement or financial or moral recognition. If you are one of them, here are 13 proven tips to raise your profile:

1. Find out what your boss expects from you and act accordingly. Many times managers do not give explicit information on their expectations. You just see from their reactions that they are unhappy with your work and still you don’t know the reason. Don’t be shy to initiate a conversation and ask what they want from you.

2. Gather feedback. Are you clear with the impact of your work? Do you have a folder full with thanking emails? If not, this is the time to start one. Collect any written feedback you receive and encourage people to give you a feedback. If someone praizes you verbally, ask them to put it into writing. Don’t forget to take your folder with you on appraisal discussions.

3. Keep your eyes open. Be informed of what is happening within the company. Talk to other people within the business or read the intranet and press articles. Be among the first ones to find out what is happening within the company so that you can react for changes without a delay.

4. Boost with your achievements. Make sure people – and especially your boss – are aware of your results and achievements. Don’t be modest. You can send over a month-end email with your accomplishments to your boss. This will help him as well to judge your entitlement to promotions or bonus.

5. Do activities beyond your job content. If you have done what is expected of your job, don’t stop there. Go out of your way to add to it. For example come up with ideas to improve systems, processes and give ready-to-use, practical suggestions of putting them into practice.

6. See your role from a different perspective. If you are in a sales role, then put yourself into the client’s shoes, if you are in accounting, then into the auditor’s. See your work from their perspective and establish what else can you (individually or the whole team) improve.

7. Do a regular SWOT analysis of yourself. Revise from time to time your personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. How can you use more your strengths? How can you improve your weaknesses? How can you grab opportunities? How can you avoid threats?

8. Build your network within the company. Build a support system, people you can turn to for help at any time. Ask for their advice, learn from them.

9. Talk to more senior people. Manytimes we commit the mistake of being afraid of top managers. We feel comfortable in dealing with our direct boss but not the people above. And what if you are not the favourite of your boss? Make sure the top management knows of your existence and accomplishments.

10. Is there an area where you can help people around you? Any talents, skills that you can use to arrange something quickly that would take a lot of time to your colleagues. This is a great way of building your reputation as an expert and having a list of people you can turn to for help.

11. Socialise. Keep good contact to your colleagues, organise company events, write articles to the intranet or ask people’s opinions – excellent ways to get yourself known companywide.

12. Keep deadlines. If you want to be your boss’ best friend, be reliable and be ready with your tasks on deadline or just before (not too early, otherwise they might think it was too easy task for you). This is the most important basic requirement your boss will expect from you in order to gain his confidence.

13. Give arguments into your boss’ hands. You have an idea that you would love to implement but you are lacking authorisation? No worries, sell your idea to your boss so that he/she can support you towards the higher management. Tell the benefits of your idea, feasibility, resources needed, cost, how and by when you could do it. Managers love getting the full picture before deciding.