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I got promoted to senior manager at Ernst and Young at just 28 years old after working there for seven years. I'd spent a lot of energy and time at this company — eight years total, to be exact — working toward securing promotions.

But looking back, I was never satisfied with them. I pushed myself to my absolute limit chasing my senior-manager title. Every time I got a promotion, there was a fleeting moment of happiness right after receiving the news, and then I'd switch back to laser-focusing on the next one. The promotions were never enough for me.

Then I had an epiphany at the end of 2019. Every year, we were notified about how many nights we stayed in hotels and how many flights we took. I'd taken 99 flights and spent more than 130 nights in a hotel that year. And I wasn't proud of that. I wasn't able to enjoy my home in New York, and I had no personal life.

And my work life wasn't a glamorous one, either. I wasn't flying business class or staying in five-star hotels — rather, I was flying coach and staying in hotels next to the airports.

When the pandemic hit, I decided that I wanted to take my life in a different direction. I left consulting and joined TikTok first as a corporate communications manager but later as the global head of internal communications.

Today, I'm the chief of staff to the president of Jellysmack — a company where we detect and develop video creators. Our team works with each individual creator to optimize their content, grow their channels, and maximize their earnings.

As a TikTok creator with 12,900 followers myself, I receive so many questions from people asking about how to get a job or promoted in consulting

I've started counseling people on the weekends for free, which is great because my favorite part about consulting was being a counselor and mentor to more junior colleagues.

There aren't many people talking about consulting on platforms like TikTok. When I started posting about it earlier this year, I felt like one of the only ones. And I think that's because it can be really intimidating to talk about it, especially if you work for one of the Big 4 companies. For that reason, consulting is an elusive industry to learn about. But since I've made a clear decision that I don't plan on including consulting in my future, I'm happy to share the truth — the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Now that I'm out of the field, I can see how strange the promotion process in consulting is to outsiders. You basically have to lead an internal PR campaign to champion yourself and advocate for your own promotion. At EY, you're given what's called a "career counselor," or someone two levels above you who's responsible for helping you navigate your future. You meet with them once a month to go over your performance and get advice to get you to the next level. At the end of the performance-review cycle, leaders from EY sit around a table and your counselor pitches your promotion for about five minutes.

If you're looking to make the best possible impression you can on your counselor and leaders at your company, here are my tips to set yourself up for a promotion.

1. Get coworkers' buy-in before the meeting
You have to be really bullish to be promoted. In some cases, only one person gets promoted out of 20, so competition is very tough.

Everyone at the table should already know your story and should be supportive of your promotion before your review. Beforehand, set up coffee chats with a number of senior managers, partners, and directors that you work with to show them what you've been working on and ask for advice on how to improve.

Many times, I would just ask, "where do you think there are gaps in my promotion case?"

2. When double standards get in the way, let your client feedback and accomplishments speak for themselves
Consulting is a predominantly male-dominated industry, and there are still some double standards. For example, you want to speak up for yourself without being labeled aggressive. You want to dress professionally and not be "distracting." It's an unfortunate line I had to tread.

I was 27 when I started my campaign to be promoted to senior manager. The feedback I got was that I looked very young and there were some concerns about whether clients would trust me. It was really shocking and frustrating feedback because it wasn't something I could just change or improve on in any way.

Even though I looked young, I had a number of great client testimonials. So I invited partners to meet with my clients and see how I worked with them and that mitigated their concerns. It was an extra hoop I had to go through, but I'm glad I spoke up and showed them I was more than capable of handling clients.

3. Build up 2 kinds of relationships
I moved around a lot internationally, and in a way, that made consulting more difficult because it was like starting from scratch each time. In consulting, you rely on more senior people to pull you into projects that help you move up.

When I moved to Dubai in 2016, I was fortunate enough that I knew a partner who was able to get me up to speed quickly. But I had no connections on my level and had to entirely rebuild my reputation.

I think of consulting as a relationship business. — it's really important to have two sets of people.

You need people to advocate for you: There's nothing stronger than someone else advocating on your behalf, and these are the people who will have a hand in if you get promoted or not. You can nurture these connections by being available 24/7 for whatever they need.
You need friends: I also think it's really important to connect with the people who are your peers and your juniors.
You spend more time with your team than you do with your family because you're on the road Monday to Thursday. I was able to sustain consulting for so long because I had an amazing team that I worked with who are now my lifelong friends.

But, I still think you should prioritize personal growth over a title change

Even though moving internationally slowed me down in some ways, I would 100% still take the international job in hindsight. Having international experience demonstrated that I had a global mindset, and now that I've left consulting, it's helped me find more job opportunities.

I think people often lose sight of why they're chasing promotions. Many just want to climb the ladder as fast as they can and forget to think about the things they care about, like working with interesting clients or in interesting places — but doing things like this will set you up for a better career overall, whether it's in consulting or not.

likehelpful

At 27 she was a sm and she was crying about how an international career slowed her down. Phew. I am 28 and still a SC

likefunny

This article is a poor written and incredibly long stream of consciousness to glamorize mediocrity. Senior Manager at EY deserves that long of an “i made it” self promotion article? Come on 🙄

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Well I feel like I’m unsuccessful now.

likefunny

Never a big fan of rhetoric wrapped up as free advice based on my personal individual life experience

like

He consults for free on the weekend? Ew

Lol why is that opening paragraph so poorly written?

Only 99 nights? Pfft

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