Planning your internal move

LinkedIn finds more professionals are planning job changes.

Want to advance internally? Here’s how.

If you’re aiming to grow within your company, there are two ways that can happen.

1. A role is vacated, or
2. A new role is created.

That’s it. 

Every internal move follows one of those two paths.

Now, you might read this and feel having only two paths is restrictive.

But this is actually very freeing. 

Because once you understand this dynamic, you can plan with more focus and less guesswork.

So let’s begin with roles that become available.

These are the moves that happen when someone leaves, changes teams or steps into a new project. 

Your strategy ISN’T to do good work and hope someone notices. 

Your strategy is to know what role you want next and WHO makes the decision when it opens up.

Because if you want to be considered, you need to be KNOWN.

This means:

• Building strong relationships with the people who influence these moves.
• Helping them understand what you’re aiming for and why it makes sense.
• Showing how you could step in and make life easier for them.

Now let’s talk about roles that get created.

Most professionals don’t realise that EVERY job is created, and that employees have a lot of influence to make this happen. 

Roles get created when there’s a clear problem that matters to the business, and then they’re filled by the person who shows they can solve it. 

The strategy here is to do BOTH. 

• Identify the problem.
• Position yourself as the solution. 

If you can see a gap that’s that’s holding the business back, don’t just wait for someone else to notice. 

• Talk to the decision-makers. 
• Understand what’s getting in their way.
• Go to them with your fresh insights. 

If they’re not open to creating a new role yet, then start solving the problem in small ways. 

This will make it clear that a new role with you in it will take the company further.

For both approaches, the key is to focus on the WHO and not the WHAT. 

Are you planning an internal move this year? 

Shoot me a DM as I’d love to help and hear your career ambitions!