Introverts Guide to Getting Promoted - for Data Analysts
We all want the next title, more money, more prestige. But we rarely talk about how to get there in an actionable way, until now.
Nothing in here is a secret. If you talk to the right person then you can get all of this information. The thing is, it’s an awkward conversation to have. It’s an awkward conversation to even consider bringing up. But it doesn’t have to be. In fact, it can be a win-win conversation for both you and your manager. I’ll show you both why and how!
Communicate early
The sooner you talk to your manager the easier this all is. They’re ultimately on your side and can help more than you think!
The first step to a promotion is bringing it up with your manager. The earlier you do this, the easier your life will be. Especially as an introvert, you know that processing information takes time. Give them the same courtesy that you would like. The reason to do it early isn’t necessarily intuitive so I’ll explain.
Your job/role isn’t all about you. Your performance also isn’t all about you. When you do well, it reflects positively on both you and your manager. A portion of their job is to help you succeed. Even when they have no part in helping you succeed, they benefit. This is why you want to talk to your manager early on. If they know that you eventually want a promotion to a more senior role, they can start helping you get there. Asking early means that your manager can set the wheels in motion sooner rather than later. There aren’t many things worse for them than a strong member of their team who wants to be promoted immediately. Keep in mind, they now have to worry both about you being upset AND their own manager reinforcing that people can’t just have promotions handed out on a whim.
Now that you know the why, I’ll explain the how. First, know that this is likely going to be an unexpected conversation for them. They’ll need a bit of time to get their head around the idea. While this has likely been on your mind for a while, they have other priorities and can’t read your mind. If you have a regular 1:1 with them, I suggest giving them a heads-up a day before by saying you want to discuss your career. You gain nothing by surprising them and this is a kind way to begin the conversation. You can also include that you’ve started thinking about what your role at the company could look like in 6-12 months from now, if that’s true. If your timeline is sooner, be upfront about that, but be aware that a shorter than 6-month timeline is going to be harder to faclilitate if this is the first conversation you’re having with them on the topic.
If you’ve started this conversation far enough ahead, they’ll be happy. You want to take on more responsibility. Yes, that also likely means a bigger title and more money, but remember to also see it from their perspective. Go in with a curious mind. Ask lots of questions and be open to different options they may give you. If they give you none, you’ll need to switch tactics and start asking probing questions to find out what the path to a promotion is. These can be questions such as:
What would you expect me to be able to do in order to have X title?
What gaps do you currently see between me and a person that has X title?
Where do you think my biggest growth areas are right now? Could we work together to improve my skills in that area?
Now that we have an idea of how to start, let’s talk a bit more about the process. You see, this decision isn’t up to your manager alone. They too report to someone and, depending on how large your company is, that chain may go for a few more links. You likely also have other people on your team - they too may be asking for a promotion. This is why it’s better to communicate early. It gives your manager space to be able to communicate up the chain and have different options worked out. As well, they’ll need to provide evidence as to why you should be promoted - something that we’ll touch on later. But again, with more time to start preparing, you’ll be able to work together and build a better case for you. This leads to our next topic.
What does your promotion look like?
Promotions come in different flavours, and this only becomes more true as you move up. Initially, it may be a move from Junior Data Analyst to Intermediate, but down the road this branches off. The titles may remain logically linear, but the actual tasks often start to vary. In other words, a bit of specialization comes into play. Even early on this can happen and is a good way to differentiate yourself. Introverts often do this by default - we’re naturally drawn to tasks that allow us time to process information internally. It’s also why introverts make great data analysts!
I recommend looking for your natural advantages and exploiting them when thinking about your next step. For me, this was mostly soft skills. Not necessarily because I had really strong soft skills, but the team that I was on was very technical so I had a relative advantage. I started putting more effort into how I delivered analyses and learned more about effective communication. I also started to look for opportunities to do more of this type of work.
For you, this could mean the same as me. Becoming an expert in one aspect of your work is another route to take. Some common themes are data storytelling, data visualization, advanced analysis/Machine Learning (ML), ETL/ELT, or becoming the subject matter expert on a tool or process that’s important to your team or company.
There are also times when it’s in your best interest to take an unofficial promotion. While these can be tricky and I don’t advocate for taking on a massive workload without any recognition, this can put you ahead. But only if you’re communicating your expectations and keeping track of what you do (more on that later). If you’re offered the chance to take on bigger or more strategic pieces of work, this is often a sign that doing well here could lead to a future promotion. Just try to ensure this is work that you actually want to do. Becoming the key person on a particular task can pigeonhole you into that sort of work. It can also mean that you don’t have the capacity to grow other skills - keep this in mind and communicate any concerns to your manager.
There’s also nothing wrong with saying you want to try something out and after a few weeks or months saying it isn’t for you. Just communicate this as you go. No one likes a surprise like this, least of all your manager who will need to ensure the work is ultimately completed.
What gap currently exists to get to the next level?
What skills do you need to improve? Be specific!
This builds on what your promotion looks like. For some, it will simply be upskilling what you’re already good at. For others, it may actually be working on some weaknesses. If you’re completely unable to talk to stakeholders then it weakens your case of being promoted to a more senior role. That being said, you don’t need to be the best communicator. Just become good enough that you can work on a project without constant oversight.
While I believe that you should capitalize on your natural advantages, this doesn’t mean that those are the only things to improve upon. If you’re excited about a specific aspect of data analysis then explore that! Curiosity is a wonderful motivator and will get you far.
What I don’t recommend is pouring all of your energy into improving on your weaknesses.
If they’re glaring and holding you back, get them to an acceptable level and stop there.
Why is this my advice?
Because the effort required to become amazing at something that you don’t have a natural advantage in is usually not worth it. Unless of course, you’re super excited about it - in which case go for it!
What can you improve in your current role?
At most companies, they want to see you exceed expectations in your current role before they consider advancing you to the next level.
Here I first suggest seeing what you can improve using better processes. The reason for this is that there’s already a pretty common playbook. It generally goes like this:
Is there something that you do on a regular cadence? Say daily, weekly, or monthly? If so, how manual is that process? Could you hand it off to someone else tomorrow and have it work flawlessly? If the answer is no, and for most of us it is, then work towards that being a yes.
There are 2 main reasons for this.
The first is obvious - you’re showing that you can make improvements. You think ahead and try to do better each day. If you have a track record of continuous improvement then folks can see that you get better over time and a promotion is just a natural next step in your career.
The second is less obvious - sometimes a promotion can actually put the company in a sticky situation. If you’re the only person that can do a detailed or time-consuming task then the company may feel pressure to keep you at a lower level so that you continue doing said task. They may worry that you’ll feel that it’s below your pay grade and you may ask to stop doing it if you’re promoted. The solution here is to make it so that anyone can do it, or better yet so that it’s fully automated.
I don’t recommend worrying about full automation right off the bat, but if you want to start down that path, here are my steps.
Write out every single step in full detail. Which button do you push in which order? Where do you copy and paste the data? What does the final email look like? And so on.
Pick the easiest part to either automate or turn into a template. Automating doesn’t need to be full here. Clicking 2 buttons instead of 3 is good! If it’s a template, figure out if you can help the person using it to make decisions easier. Even if it’s client updates, do you use specific language based on the % change vs. last month? (Rapid growth, decent growth, gradual growth, etc.). Being able to shortcut those decisions for someone else is the start of automating. I once even went so far as to use a boatload of IF statements in an Excel doc to automatically determine what language to use based on the % change vs. last period. It was ugly and it worked great!
Continue filling in the manual gaps. This may end up meaning that you need to completely change the process, however, which is why I don’t worry about full automation right away. It’s oftentimes a full overhaul to get there and may have marginal returns.
A wonderful side effect of this exercise is that you’ll notice any flaws in your current process. I can’t count the number of times I’ve written down a process that I’ve been doing for a while only to notice issues for the first time. Normally they are minor, but humans are very bad at sticking to strict rules. This is why automation is advantageous. We expect others to be perfect every time but we don’t expect that of ourselves for some reason. We can keep improving though, and that’s what I recommend next.
What can you take on now that will be part of your next role?
There are often “stretch” tasks that you can do that are a bit beyond your current level - seek those out!
For an intermediate data analyst, this is often taking full ownership of a project or process. You become the point person and any questions or concerns come to you! This doesn’t necessarily mean that you won’t ask for help from your manager, but over time you become the expert. For me as a junior data analyst, I took over 1 single report that was high visibility for a small group of stakeholders. I learned everything about it and found ways to improve the process, mostly by just automating pieces of it. Over time, this led to me being in the room when the report was used, which was quite often. These stakeholders learned to see me as the expert here and that slowly generalized to other work that I did for them. It’s a powerful approach!
If you’re unsure what these projects/processes could be, ask your manager! If they don’t have ideas then start looking at those who are a little bit ahead of you. What tasks do they do that you could probably take on if they spent some time walking you through them? Is there a specific tool that only 1 person knows that you’re willing to learn to be their backup? These are all good options.
The reason for worrying about this now may be counterintuitive to some. We often think that we get a promotion AND THEN we take on new work. While you’ll certainly get some additional work added to your plate with a promotion, this order is backwards. We take on new work which shows that we can handle the next step. In the same way that when we apply for a new job, we don’t show up and say “I don’t have what you’re looking for but I’m confident that I can do the job”. Now of course there’s some balance here and you aren’t going to take on every single task before a promotion, but doing a healthy amount of those tasks further strengthens your case. It also helps to validate that you indeed are interested in doing the work that is associated with this new role. The key to this goes back to communication.
Communicate often
Keep your promotion top of mind for your manager. They have responsibilities other than just you. This also includes documentation from you - make it easy for them!
It’s easy to think that your manager is worrying about you all the time. It’s likely that your life is always top of mind for you, why shouldn’t it be for them? In reality, even if they have a small team they have other responsibilities. They also don’t have perfect memory. If you tell them 10 things in a conversation, their remembering 7 of them is impressive. This is why we want to communicate often and document what we say!
This isn’t to try and catch them out or hold it against them. It’s really the opposite - it’s to help both them and you. In fact, I recommend putting this document in a place where they can access it without your help. This increases trust and transparency which are both your friend. It also does some of the heavy lifting for you, especially as an introvert. This can feel awkward speaking directly to them but writing it down means that they can read what you’re thinking and give you a “soft” opening of sorts.
Imagine you’ve told them that you’re interested in learning about a new tool. They want to help set you up for this but they can’t remember the name. This saves them the step of having to ask you! It also means that they can drop a course into the document so that you have it ready to dive into. If you’re unsure of a structure for this, just start a Google doc and put down the date every week or two when you meet. You can think of it like meeting minutes or even a journal. Include a few main bullet points from the conversation along with any action items. As time goes on, be sure to revisit prior weeks’ action items and update them with the outcome! More detail is better here. This will ultimately be used to help get you closer to your promotion.
Follow Up Follow Up Follow Up!
Find a regular cadence to talk about your tracking document. Either a regular 1:1 with them if you have that set up or even just a fortnightly recap of the last 2 weeks. Keep it often enough that you can include smaller wins - once every 3 months tends to glaze over the smaller things you’ve done that are still important.
This doesn’t need to be scary or a big deal. The first few times you talk about your achievements may feel a bit weird, but remember that your manager is with you on this! They want to see you grow and succeed. Think of it as fulfilling your side of things. If they’re going to try and get you a promotion, it’s easier when they can see your progress. It also gets easier as you go on, it’ll start to feel natural after a few times.
This also removes the issue of recency bias. This is our tendency to remember things that happened in the recent past instead of things further back. When you’re putting together a case for a promotion, you want to include all the important things you’ve done. Not just what happened in the last 2 months. It’s likely that you do a few big projects in a year with a bunch of smaller ones in between. Those big ones are important and they often drive an outsized amount of value for the business. You want to make sure they remember the value that you bring - this tracking document is your easy ticket to doing so.
BONUS: What sort of company is it easiest to get promoted at?
This is a tricky question, but one that I will do my best to give good advice on. In short, there isn’t one clear answer to this. There’s a lot of variation and seemingly small or unknown things like culture can play a big part. As well, company size and age, along with industry and team size are all important factors in this analysis.
In long, places where there’s little politics and red tape. As I’ve discussed, promotions are not only the decision of your manager. The more layers of management there are, the more approval will likely be required. A team of 2 may only be a manager and an individual contributor. Those tend to exist at younger, smaller companies. While this could mean that it’s harder to move around internally, it could also mean that there’s room to be promoted without displacing anyone. An intermediate data analyst under a manager can be promoted to a senior without it affecting anyone else. It’s hard to know if this will be the case at a new company though. One trick that I have used to try and tease this out is to ask about internal movement and promotion in the interview process. Or if you’re already part of a company, ask folks if that’s common. If you’re seeing it on other teams or departments, it’s plausible that the data team will have this too.
On the flip side, larger teams also provide more opportunities to move around. Going to the extreme, massive companies like Google have many analytics teams. If there isn’t room for promotion on one team, it may be possible on another. Mentorship and upskilling might also be easier with more projects and people to learn from. These teams can also be quite large and there may be more opportunity for promotions, though it will likely require more approval.
Here are a few questions that you can ask during the interview process at a new company to help you better understand how common promotions are:
What does your annual review process look like? Do you have job descriptions for the next level above the role I’m interviewing for so that I know what direction specifically to grow in?
Do folks tend to move between teams to support one another? Is there a formal process for moving to another team?
