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At my company (traditional finance), the “official” line is that you can be promoted basically to what is more or less a senior level based on merit and performance review alone. After that (director/ACD level essentially) can only happening you apply for an open role. Even if the role is “opened for you”, you still have to apply and compete with other candidates. Depending on business area, Our reporting hierarchy seems to be mostly based on headcount, with a handful of mid or senior level people reporting to a director level. There are very few jr. Level people at my company, and almost no 1-to-1 reporting relationships, because HR sucks. I have a 1-to-1 with a mid-level under me because I fought for it, but it’s almost never done simply as a good creative team practice.
Packaged Food. I love how structured CPG is for early career- though admittedly when I was first starting out it gave me so much anxiety. 2-3 coordinated rotations at the ABM/Sr ABM level, 2-4 where you might be lobbying or sometimes even interviewing internally at the Manager level, then hopefully Director. Each rotation is 18-24 months with a goal of getting broad experience in different businesses and marketing functions.
People will get coached out of the company/industry if they can’t develop analytic or creative chops at the associate level. If they don’t have what it takes to make director (people mgmt, strategy thinking) or just can’t commit to a high stress career, they can stay at the manager level for a long time.
For brand-side creatives (and we don’t have many, large companies in the industry rely heavily on agencies), similar time in role, obviously less diversity in the rotations since you’re not going to go off and do a sales rotation. Titles are majorly deflated vs. agency (ie. it’s super rare to make Director before your mid 30s).
I have been in my current role for 9 years and been promoted in place three times. However, last year the company put a stop to its promotion-in-place policy. I still don’t understand why. I have a truly excellent designer on my team whom everyone loves. To promote him this year, I had to post a new role at a higher pay grade, then get him to apply, review resumes, interview him and go through the whole hiring rigamarole. It was worth it to give him a bump he deserved, but what a waste of my time. I hope they reconsider this policy change at some point.
PS, the industry is banking. Creative services gets the shaft in that world in a variety of ways, even though we are heavily relied upon. In terms of fostering my employee’s growth, I have made hm the de facto “manager” of our contract workers to give him people management experience, which he has handled well. I would love to get another designer on my team and give him a true FTE direct report, but my requests for headcount have been denied. In the current environment, the company is willing to spend insane money on contractors for marketing but not increase headcount.
That’s sounds just like where I work (insurance). I can try and get the person under me promoted in place, but then they would be the same level as me, and HR’s new policy won’t let people at my level get promoted without defining a need, opening a role, and people applying. Technically, someone could lose their job if they were rejected for their “own” promotion role. (Like if they opened an ACD role, promoted my underling to SAD, and I applied and got rejected for the ACD). HR hates 1x1 reporting structures, so we have a bunch of seniors around here with no way to grow their mentoring skills.
Small to medium size agency. Title bumps have been less common (~1 per year for the whole agency). I got promoted AD > Sr AD last year finally with my bosses acknowledging it was overdue.
Our team has grown quite a bit in the past few years so our structure is a bit more layered with designers reporting to ADs and ADs reporting to the ACD.