The Early Show

Make Yourself More Promotable

By John Kreiser

February 10, 2006 / 3:09 PM EST / CBS

Are you ready to move up but not willing to move out to do it?

A lot of us are often told that to get a promotion, we have to change employers. But that may be stale advice. The opportunity to advance in your company may be closer than you think.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of all workers with full-time jobs who are age 55 and older will grow to more than 20 percent in 14 years. Due to the sheer magnitude of this change, increasing numbers of workers will be leaving their current jobs to retire or accommodate a planned change in lifestyle.

That trend, combined with the potential for increased hiring as the economy improves, bodes well for younger, advancement-minded workers.

Clearly this will not happen overnight. Aging baby boomers may retire later. According to AARP, 69 percent of employees older than 45 plan to continue working past 65.

But rather than hanging on to their current jobs until they drop, real-life trends indicate that late-stage workers either are staying in their jobs longer or seeking "bridge jobs" — part-time, short-term or self-employed jobs — before they finally exit the workforce. One of the explanations for this is that older workers will seek jobs in locations and on terms that are more in line with the lifestyle they will want as they plan on how they want to life the later years of their lives.

Younger workers with talent and ambition will want to keep these trends in mind and think about how to improve their promotion probability.

If you like the company you work for and the people you work with — and you'd like to move up, not out — there are some things you can do to increase your possibility for promotion while you stay put.

This advice is particularly important at this time of year because your accomplishments during the whole year are considered when you are up for an end-of-year evaluation, consideration for a bonus or a promotion.

Career advice-givers commonly preach that to get promoted, you'll either have to leave the company for a better job; your current company must create a new position for you; or your boss must get promoted, retire or leave. They all give the same fundamental advice: To increase your promotion probability, you must learn your boss' job and train your replacement.

I'll add my two cents: Grow your boss' business by coming up with new ways to grow revenue. A growing business can pay for expansion — and your promotion. Nothing gets more positive recognition than adding to the bottom line.

If you'll be in the working world for some time to come, now is the time to take steps to improve your promotion probability. The best advice I've read for increasing your promotion probability while staying with the same company includes:

Don't Do Only What You Are Told: Never respond to your boss' request by doing only what was asked. Instead of providing a list of information requested, think of why your boss asked for it and provide thought-provoking analysis and conclusions with it. This will show your boss that you are thinking ahead. The way to get promoted is not by doing what you are told but by taking the initiative to do more and to come up with new ways to do things.

Under-Promise And Over-Deliver: Give reasonable time frames for delivering on requested tasks and set reasonable expectations for your finished work product — then blow your boss' socks off by delivering more and earlier. Soon you'll be recognized for "consistently exceeding expectations."

Always Make Your Boss Look Good: Meet regularly with your boss and ask what challenges and projects he or she is working on. If there is a problem your boss has to solve, think it through and have a solution ready to offer.

Let Your Talent Do The Talking: Your value to your company is a reflection of how well you do your job. Jump at the chance to complete additional training and education, then master your new skills. Let your talent do your talking so you won't have to blow your own horn.

According to career gurus, these are the top qualities of people who get promoted:

They work for a company and leaders they respect and admire. As a result, they put their heart into their work, aspire to be like their boss and perform without holding back.

They know the business, and they always keep the big picture in mind. Also, the know how daily tasks fit into the overall process of running and growing the business.

They play office politics, but not the smarmy kind that gets the bad press. Instead, they know how to reach a compromise that satisfies most of the people involved. They also know how to bring objectors into the loop in advance and how to mollify them before a controversy erupts.

They get things done because they know that while there are lots of people who can have meetings and talk about work, the ones who can execute and implement are the ones who are the most valuable to a company. Remember the workplace factoid: 80 percent of what needs to get done is done by 20 percent of the workers. You need to be in that 20 percent group if you want to get promoted.

They have strong technical skills and work hard on technical projects. They don't fear taking on new technical tasks or learning how to use new technology to do things in new and improved ways.

They work beyond 9 to 5. They're not just concerned about the work of the day. They also take classes, read books and get extra training to increase their human capital.

More from CBS News