If you feel stuck in a career rut, your friends are leapfrogging you on the management ladder and you have been in the same role for half a decade or more, you need to consider your future. Are you happy? Do you want this to be the final position you ever have? The chances are the answer to these questions is no otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. The days of instant guaranteed promotion are long gone. You need to be proactive, seek out opportunities and put in maximum effort to just get to the interview stage. Jobs are scarce and will always go to the finest candidates. It’s up to you to ensure you can hold your own against the competition. Take a look at these three pitfalls to avoid when you are going for your next promotion.

Lack Of Relevant Skills

Just because you did that in-house software training three years ago doesn’t mean you are ready for a leadership role that involves managing a small team of offshore experts. You need to ensure that you have the skills and qualifications relevant to the position you are applying. If the management role requires experience in overseeing multi-million dollar projects and delegating to a staff team, then take on more responsibility in your current position ready for the next rung on the career ladder. Get some more industry specific qualifications under your belt like an engineering MBA to demonstrate your eagerness to continually grow and learn professionally. These skills can then be translated into your new role.

Scattergunning

If you are one of those people that might spy a dozen jobs on Linkedin and then apply for every single one using the same application, then you will never get to interview stage, and you’ll see your name firmly on the rejection pile. It’s important to be nuanced in your approach to your career path. Only apply for those roles that are a perfect fit with your personality and skill set. You need a bespoke application for each job to demonstrate a thorough understanding of the person specification. You need to be concise, match your skills to the job spec and show off a little knowledge about the company you wish to work for. This will get your foot in the door, so you can impress face to face.

Rejection

Even though you may have applied for a couple of jobs and been swiftly rejected, it’s essential that you don’t become too disheartened. It’s always tough to discover that your seemingly perfect job has another candidate in mind. If you are continually finding yourself opening up rejection emails, reply and ask for some constructive feedback on your application. It might be that you don’t have enough experience in a certain area, you are missing a qualification, or you are simply up against fierce competition, and it was a close call. Keep persevering and plugging away and eventually, you will secure your much-deserved promotion.

Making the leap from middle management to leadership is always the hardest hurdle as there are fewer roles for greater numbers of job seekers. However, follow this advice, and you can maximize your chances of promotion success.