The next level Why you’re hired will have nothing to do with why you’re promoted

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Look familiar? Maybe the above phrases were some of the keywords you used on your resume when you were hired for your current job. Now that you’ve proven yourself more than capable of handling your current set of responsibilities, you’ll need to learn a new set of strengths and skills for your resume if you want to achieve greater success with your current employer.

“You’re hired to do one job, and despite how good you are at that job, it doesn’t mean you’re qualified by any means to do the job above that one,” say career adviser Niles Smith, who works with financial executives in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. “If you want a promotion, you have to prove that you’re ready for the job you want, not the one you have.”

Smith says promotions don’t happen automatically. “The days of ‘you did a good job; we’re giving you a raise and a new title’ are over, if they ever even existed at all,” Smith says. “If you want a promotion today, you’ll need to get a full understanding of the job you want and what your employer is looking for.”

Fill the gaps

Most employees spend the bulk of their work focusing on the nuts and bolts of their job. That’s fine, says Smith, “as long as you want to keep working on those same nuts and bolts for the next 10 years.” If you don’t, he suggests taking a hard look at what your boss does or what he or she is supposed to do,” Smith says. “Look at job descriptions within your company and at other similar companies. If you know your boss is planning on leaving — or even if you share a strong relationship — go ahead and ask. You may be unaware of the financial planning that’s done or the business proposals that are required, and if you have no experience in those fields, you have to get some.”

For Manny Reinhold, that experience came when he offered to help out his seemingly overwhelmed boss. “His wife just had twins and you could tell he was getting no sleep,” says Reinhold, a 33-year-old financial planner in Dallas. “We’re pretty good work friends, so I don’t think he was intimidated when I asked if I could help. In fact, it was like he was waiting for it.”

Reinhold says the morning after he offered his assistance, his boss told him he’d be working from home and asked if he could help finalize two reports. “And the best thing was that he gave me really good instructions,” Reinhold says. “I tore through the work in about four hours and sent it back to him for approval. He made a couple of suggestions, then sent it to our VP and mentioned that I finished it up for him. He was incredibly generous in giving me credit.”

The work only snowballed from there. “More reports, more analysis, more meetings,” Reinhold says. “It was like I became his right-hand man.”

And people began to notice. “Some of my coworkers weren’t too pleasant about it, but I didn’t care,” Reinhold says. “They could have offered to help, but they didn’t. And I was learning so much, not just about his job but also about other people in the firm.”

Eventually, Reinhold was promoted to a job similar to his manager’s, but in a new office. “It’s been fantastic,” he says. “But it’s something I never would have received if I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Learn when you can

Smith acknowledges that not all managers are as gracious as Reinhold’s, but he says even difficult bosses can still provide opportunities. “I worked for someone who didn’t want to siphon off any of his duties because he always felt threatened, especially by the women in the office,” says Ramona Perez, a 41-yearold production manager in Naperville, Illinois. “I realized I’d never get any new assignments from him, so I tactfully went around him. I asked some of my peers what he did and how he did it, but it got back to him, so I guess I wasn’t so tactful.”

Perez’s boss actually brought it up with the company’s HR department. Instead of chastising Perez, they enrolled her in a series of online courses in project management. “They were great,” she says. “I didn’t even realize an HR department did stuff like that.”

Smith says most HR departments do, and if they don’t, you can look for appropriate classes on your own. “At the very least, your HR department should give you a job description. Then you can look for classes that can help you sharpen your skills, as well as mentors who can assist you in doing so.”