Jade Bonacolta, a 31-year-old from Miami, ended up working at Google after five promotions at the LinkedIn company. She started as an associate within the networking platform and remained in that position for a while, until she decided it was time to advance to the position of Senior Associate.
To get there, she came up with the idea of asking her superior two fundamental questions: “What are my responsibilities at my current level? And how would my responsibilities be different if I had a higher level?
Her boss answered both questions by explaining that managers, a position above Bonacolta, must demonstrate to their subordinates that they know how to use the skills required for a higher position based on a business case. After this revelation, the Miami native discovered a new path to follow for her next position.
Don’t be overconfident
Most people understand that to achieve a position above their own in their company’s hierarchy, they must put more effort into what they do. This isn’t a bad suggestion, but it’s not entirely on the right track.
With these two questions, Bonacolta has shown that to rise to the next level within a company, it is not enough to demonstrate that you are putting in more effort than the rest, but rather to direct that effort towards what is expected of someone in a higher position.
Once the answers to these two questions are known, any employee must learn to manage the basic objectives expected of their current job and, once this is achieved, begin to master the skills required for the next position. But that’s not all; the employee must not only acquire these skills, but also demonstrate them to their superior.
The case of Bonacolta is an example
As a junior position, the Miami native was responsible for finding innovative ways to improve sales quota achievement, she said in an interview with Business Insider. She was responsible for the most basic tasks within this objective, such as creating reports and presenting recommendations.
Those presentations were then used by her manager in meetings with the Sales Leadership Team. This was a time-consuming task for her superior, so she offered to present the slides as well. It was unusual for an associate to want to go above and beyond their duties, but Jade’s subordinate gave her permission to do so.
After her first presentation, she was asked to do subsequent ones as well, and within a few weeks, she was responsible for managing all of the team’s stakeholders. The trust the manager placed in her proved invaluable when she asked for a promotion. Her superior had no trouble defending her, as she was already doing what a Senior Associate or even a Manager did in the company.
From there, she just had to follow the initiative she’d had from the start, thanks to the two questions she’d asked as an associate. Other positions above hers soon followed, and she ultimately decided to change companies and join another company - Google.
In the interview, Bonacolta recalls the importance of loving what you do. There’s no point in climbing the corporate ladder if you don’t like what you’re getting. It’s important to decide when to stop or change positions.