Six Strategies To Make Sure You’re Getting Credit For Your Work

Mint lists six strategies to make sure you’re getting credit for your work as follows:

Give presentations when possible. People don’t just remember great presentations and ideas; they remember the people who delivered the message.

Send status reports frequently. When it comes to increasing your visibility, the name of the game is repetition.

Get favorable testimonials. Nothing reminds people of how brilliant your last idea was than a third-party testimonial from a customer or colleague who brags on your behalf.

Ask for similar successful projects. Focusing on projects that you know you’ll succeed in will help build your manager’s confidence in you.

Load up on projects around review time. The time to really work on getting your due credit is right before review time.

Stay visibly busy. It’s not enough to just take on projects, you need to go a step further and actually look busy.

I think these tips are great suggestions to help grow your income for one reason: they help demonstrate that you deserve a raise. And if a picture is worth a thousand words, the actions above are worth thousands of dollars (in additional income for you.) Here's my take on each of these:

• Presentations make you visible and assuming what you say is actually good, can help catapult your career. Of course if you bomb, the fact that you have an audience for your crash landing will also magnify the situation and do more damage to your career than would happen likewise. Two suggestions to make sure you do well: 1) Before you present, run your thoughts/slides by a trusted co-worker -- someone who's well-respected and will give you honest feedback. Then make any adjustments she suggests (and that you think are appropriate.) 2) Rehearse the presentation so you are smooth. HOW you say something is sometimes just as important as WHAT you say. Someone who limps through a presentation might be described as "good", but someone who presents the same presentation with ease and finesse will be remembered for giving a "great" speech.
• I recommend a weekly update to your boss to tell what you're doing and the results that are being achieved.
• If you can get a customer or co-worker to give a testimonial, that's great. But it's hard to do, of course. One way to help along the process is that if someone expresses appreciation for your work, simply ask him if he'd be willing to pass his thoughts on to your boss as a favor to you. You'll need to be sure it's easy and appropriate for him to do so in advance (and that you won't be crossing any boundaries that would make him feel uncomfortable) so you don't alienate him by asking. But it's worth pursuing if you think he'll do it -- especially if he's an important customer or vital to your company in some other way.
• Certainly you'll want projects that you think you'll succeed at -- that goes without saying. But I'll add that you want IMPORTANT projects that you'll succeed at. For instance, it's better to spearhead a team that saves the company $500,000 than it would be to spearhead a team that successfully developed the theme for the company Christmas party. I know, it's an extreme comparison, but I wanted to illustrate the point. Choices like these rarely contrast that much, but you get the idea of what I'm saying.
• It's a fact of life that bosses give a disproportionate amount of weight at review time to recent events. So if you've been a stinker the past couple of months, your review will have a tendency to be so-so at best, even if you hit home runs most of the rest of the year. Then again, you might have been a bench player much of the year, but if you've delivered a few big wins over the last few months, it's likely that you'll get a good review (and corresponding raise.) Plan your successes accordingly (to the extent you can.)
• Perception is reality. We all know that, right? So if you look busy (even if you aren't), you'll be viewed as a "hard worker." (Of course you don't want to appear so busy that you look frazzled or seem like your job is too much for you.) If you look like you have all the time in the world on your hands, you can't be doing a good job now, can you? I know, I know. Looks don't necessarily relate to performance. But I did say that perception is reality, didn't I?

What's your take on these tips? Anything else to add?

Comments

[MBTN]

At first I was a little dismayed by this advice, since it seems to be oriented towards appearances rather than the actual content of your work. However, that's the way the business world works unfortunately.

I agree with what FMF says in that presentations can be a double-edged sword. One thing that toook my presentation skills to the next level was taking a Dale Carnegie course. My company used to pay for people to attend (not anymore due to the economy) and I was one of those selected. For me, this was one of the best courses out there for improving your interpersonal skills as well as your presentation skills. One big lesson I learned is that you should do your presentation from memory, rather than reading it from cue cards. This forces you to really know your subject inside and out, and also your presentation comes across in a much more natural way.

[Larissa]

I *mostly* agree with this advice, save for the "looking busy" tip. Unfortunately, I think that is what is wrong with corporate america - and why so much needless busy work is created. Hopefully you can look "busy" because you are busy doing your work. If your'e spending a lot of time trying to look busy though, maybe you should consider looking for a promotion that might challenge you more, so you are busy, and get paid more. I do like the other tips though - esp the weekly updates with your boss.

[jolivet]

These are good advises and for sure you will get a raise and have a good career if you follow these tips.
The only problem: if everybody follow these tips no job will be done...
Don't you think there is something wrong in our system ?

[Anonymous]

Looking busy is important, but is only part of the charade.

Ideally, you complete enough projects to genuinely move the work effort forward, but do so in 70% of your time. You spend the other 30% or so of your time seeming busy enough to start alternative businesses or enhance your career while pretending to work for your actual employer.

Sound cynical? Yes, a little. But last year I got a 97/100 on my personal evaluation, and got a 2.3% raise. Average raise at the company? 2%. This means busting my behind is worth about $4/week.