Google techie says getting rejected for promotion was a 'blessing in disguise': 'Reverse-engineered the process'

Following the rejection, the woman decided to remain in the organisation and also decided to take more control of her career at Google, by opting to take more responsibility. (Representational Image).

A Google techie recently said that getting rejected for a promotion in the organisation proved to be a "blessing in disguise" as it helped her take greater ownership and responsibility in her work.

The techie, who joined Google in October 2011, said that she had a difficult start to her stint with the software giant and not having a stable manager impacted her progress.

"I had 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," the woman told Business Insider.

The woman said that seven months after joining the organisation, she moved to Google Fiber where she was rejected for a promotion, the first time.

"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."

"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.

Following the rejection, the woman decided to remain in Google and made a decision to take more control of her career, by opting to take more responsibility.

"I didn't plan on quitting Google. I knew I 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 decided to figure out as much as I could on my own and take on more responsibility. I pushed for a particular project I wanted to work on. My manager might have said no if it had been a larger team because the work was higher than my current level, but because it was quite small, they let me take it on. My manager placed their trust in me to deliver," she said.

The woman also said that she became more proactive about her communication and gave regular updates to her manager about the progress made by her.

"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.

A year after her first rejection, the woman applied for another promotion and was promoted to the position of senior engineer, this time around.

"I applied for another promotion. 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.

Also read: Google staffer shares what to consider while choosing mentees: 'Proactive and self-driven'