Throughout my IT career, I’ve seen women often underestimate their skills, convincing themselves they couldn’t progress beyond their current position.
Despite wanting to advance, they self-disqualify by focusing on every job requirement they don’t fully meet.
Meanwhile, men apply for roles they aren’t fully qualified for and often get them.
Women can be overly critical, letting past mistakes or perceived limitations prevent progress.
It’s important to notice how you might be holding yourself back—focusing on requirements you don’t yet meet or assumptions you’ve made about yourself—while continuing to perform well in your current role and stretching beyond it.
In this episode, we’ll uncover 3 critical steps to position you for advancement and break through current barriers.
Let Intuition Guide Your Next Move in IT
When do you know you’re ready for a change in your current role?
When you feel those gentle nudges telling you it’s time.
When staying starts to feel more restrictive than stretching forward.
Can you relate?
The fear of the unknown keeps you safe in your current position but it also stagnates your growth.
Wouldn’t you rather take a leap forward at the opportunities that come your way than feel regret for the rest of your life?
Rest assured, you’ll know it’s time to make a change if you’re in tune with your intuition and trust what it’s telling you.
I experienced a very difficult situation in my career that caused so much stress and anxiety I couldn’t sleep at night.
I remember talking about it with my dentist one day while he was fitting me for a mouth guard for my sore jaw. I shared details with him and without hesitation he said, “why don’t you just find another job”?
The answer seemed obvious at the time, but until that moment I’d convinced myself the best option was to ride it out and try to fix things. The reality is I couldn’t. I had already tried everything I knew with no success.
A job opportunity became available within a few weeks that I didn’t think I was totally qualified for, but I really needed a change and applied anyway.
I was interviewed by a team of 3 people, which felt pretty intimidating. Interestingly enough, the hiring manager wasn’t one of them.
I went into the interview with an open mind and did my very best to answer the questions, even though there were a couple I wasn’t sure about.
Within a couple of days, I received a phone call from the hiring manager letting me know they had offered the job to another candidate. While I was disappointed with that news, he expressed that I had made a very positive impression on the interview team. He encouraged me to apply for future positions in their organization.
WOW!!! I was pleasantly surprised by the news. It felt great to receive that kind of feedback from a senior manager outside my organization.
Even though I didn’t secure that position, another one soon became available. It leveraged my strengths in program and project management, my years of IT experience, and my ability to lead across the organization.
And I followed the steps I’m about to share with you to achieve it.
Here are 3 critical steps to advance your IT career:
- Develop a strategy tied to business outcomes your leadership cares about—revenue, risk reduction, scalability, delivery speed, or customer impact.
- Identify any targeted training you may need, look for opportunities to build cross-functional experience, and work with a mentor or coach to overcome barriers.
- At the same time, develop sponsors within the organization who will be advocates for you and champion your work.
- Communicate your plan to your leadership team to increase visibility and demonstrate progress.
- On a quarterly basis, schedule conversations focused on the business problems you’re solving, the impact you’re delivering, and elicit leadership support to accelerate your progress.
- Assess your growth through structured feedback.
- At least annually, gather 360-degree feedback from colleagues, stakeholders, and leaders. Use the input as data to refine strategy and reinforce readiness for your next role.
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of developing a strategy anchored to business outcomes. This is a critical step that is often overlooked.
But many times, focus gets lost on endless training courses that consume a lot of time with limited benefit. Training loses impact if there is no focus on how it will be utilized to achieve business goals.
Your leadership team needs to see how the work you’re doing reduces organizational risks, increases customer satisfaction, grows the business, or delivers products more quickly.
If you’re already doing one or two of these well, determine how you can increase the positive impact for your organization and company.
Also remember to increase your communication and visibility with your leadership team so they don’t lose sight of the important work you’re doing.
Now…are you ready to follow the steps outlined and go after the next advancement in your career?
You’ve got this!
Stay empowered and lead assertively!