A Google techie shared that she was rejected for a promotion in the organisation which ultimately proved to be a “blessing in disguise”. The techie joined Google in October 2011 and said that it was “a rocky start because I didn’t have a team for two weeks. When I eventually did, my manager left two months into my role. I had several interim managers. I was unlucky — none of my friends who started at a similar time had an experience like that.”
As per Business Insider, the woman said that soon she moved to Google Fiber where she was rejected for a promotion. She said, “After seven months, I started working on Google Fiber. I moved there because I wanted to work for a growing team. It was like a startup within Google. I had a stable manager and felt like I finally belonged to a team.”
She shared, “I had to write a self-assessment and collect feedback from my peers. In my case, decisions were made by people from other organizations within Google, such as YouTube or the ads team. These “promotions committees” review your application. In mine, I listed all the projects I was working on. My peers also gave positive feedback. But my manager told me my promotion was rejected. They said it was because I hadn’t been able to show enough impact for the next level. Google had “career rubrics” summarizing the abilities it expected from each level.”
“Its philosophy was that you perform at the level of the role you’re trying to get to for at least six months before you’re up for promotion,” she said.
After this, the woman decided to remain in Google as she said that she “needed to figure out how to get promoted, so I reverse-engineered the process. The biggest thing I realized was that managers didn’t have time to guide my career. I needed to guide my career. Instead of them telling me what I needed to do to get promoted, I needed to figure it out and ask them for support in achieving those things.”
“I knew I needed to show that I could be trusted with timelines, deliverables, and communication. I became much more proactive in my communication. I escalated and flagged concerns early on and updated my manager much more frequently on my progress,” she said.
Following this, she applied for another promotion and was promoted to the position as well.
She said, “This time, I got it – two and a half years after I’d joined Google. Getting rejected the first time was a blessing in disguise because I learned so much by getting rejected. After that, I got promoted to the next level – a senior engineer – the following Spring,” she said.
The woman said that in early 2016, she was promoted again and became the tech lead. In January 2017, she quit the software giant and joined Uber.