Working a small strategy consulting firm with an emphasis on media strategy and PR. For months I was told I was on a fast track for account manager. Had my annual yesterday, and was totally blindsided — and was not promoted. Feedback didn’t seem justified to not promote. I was looking forward to the $ increase, but also we know how important titles are as women.

I feel misled and am not sure if I want to stay with the firm now. Any advice?

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My approach for these (and I’m not assuming you did or didn’t do this since it’s not clear from your post) is to actively clarify with my coach and every higher up I work with that I am pursing a promotion by X date and have a conversation about what boxes I check and which ones I still need to prove, at minimum 6 months in advance of promotion. I think the key is being clear that you are looking for a promotion and building your case, as opposing to being complimented for being an overachiever. The difference is very subtle but if they call you an overachiever and you passively accept it they have made no commitment to you, versus if you actively pursue promotion and build an airtight case and get your coaches and higher ups to enthusiastically and clearly gun for your promotion at year end.

Also yeah, you may have done all that and it still didn’t work out. Which sucks a lot, and maybe you can ask them which of the competencies they can point to that you underperformed in. And if it’s bullshit, then it’s political and you may want to leave. But politics are unfortunately everywhere, so you’d just want to go to a place where you think you’d have more political capital.

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This is helpful, thank you. I had another conversation with my manager yesterday and then have another set up on Monday, so I will try to set clearer intentions and ask for which competencies need to be met to get there. I’m planning to ask for another review in three months, as opposed to six or waiting for my annual, to see where things stand.

Basically for months I was told, “you’re going to be an AM soon, so…” or “we don’t like to promote until you’ve been here for a year…” etc. for six months. Multiple colleagues were under the impression I was getting promoted based on how management was talking about me and my work — so it wasn’t just me.

Not sure if it’s political, or budget, or what. We just hired three new people and two others got promotions (not on my team, so shouldn’t impact me getting promoted) but just felt super misleading.

I have some trauma from my last role where I was told repeatedly for three years I was going to be promoted and never was— and I don’t want to reveal this and sound non-promotable — but it’s something that has given me some serious trust issues.

Do you want to stay or are you willing to leave?

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Until this happened, I planned on spending many years with the company, but have reconsidered over the last 48 hrs and started looking for something else. I feel like I should keep my options open.

It seems like I don’t have enough translatable experience yet though to move to a bigger consultancy. (I’ve only been here for a year, changed careers after 11 years.) So far everything I’ve applied for at Big 4, etc. I’ve gotten almost immediate, “we’re not moving forward with your application” emails.

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