Your Extraordinary Career: On or Off the Fast Track?

Q:  I’m pretty good at my job, I like where I work, and my boss seems to like me. How do I know if I’m on the fast track or not?

A:  If you’re wondering if you’re on the fast track, you’re probably not. It’s no secret to those people who are on the fast track because, no matter if they’ve been told directly or not, all the signs are there.
You Know You’re on the Fast Track If….

1. You’re usually a member of special taskforces, selected by your boss or your boss’s boss for high-profile projects.
2. You are often pulled off other lower-priority assignments before you’re finished. Others are then reassigned to finish your work so that you can take on a special project or a higher-priority task.
3. Your boss gives you some indication—directly or indirectly—that you’re moving toward the top of your pay range, especially in terms of the ratio of compensation-to-age.
4. You’re invited—and sometimes at the last minute—to accompany your boss to meetings or lunches with important customers or senior management. Often you’re the most junior person there, and are treated in a warm and collegial way by more senior people who are top performers in the company.
5. You’re asked to make presentations at special meetings. Before you do, you receive coaching from your boss, which gives you the feeling that you’re being groomed for other things.
6. You are asked for your opinion more often than not, and often about other young people in your department or elsewhere in the company.
7. You receive subtle mentoring, sometimes when you’re not even aware of it. For example, a manager who is above you in the organization, but who has no direct responsibility for you, drops casual comments about interesting projects you might want to be involved with, articles you should read, or even a suggestion about volunteering with a corporate charity event.

On the flipside, it’s pretty easy to tell if you’re not on the fast track, especially as you look around at what others are doing.

You Know You’re Not on the Fast Track If….

1. You aren’t asked to participate in special taskforces, and you don’t even find out about them until they’ve been in place for a while or the project they’re working on is announced.
2. You are asked to finish lower-priority assignments for someone else, who has been reassigned to a special project. Often, there are gaps between your assignments.
3. You get annual pay raises, but in line with what your friends at work say they also received. You learn about job opportunities after they’ve been filled, either by someone who is promoted or a new person who is brought into the company.
4. Your boss is out for a long client meeting or lunch and, when she returns, you notice that one or two of your colleagues have accompanied her. You didn’t know about the meeting or lunch, nor were you ever invited.
5. Other people—and often someone who is your age or who has been with the company just as long as you have—make presentations at big meetings.
6. You ask questions at meetings, but no one asks for your opinion. Sometimes you have to bug people with phone calls and emails in order to get an answer.
7. People are friendly with you, but no one goes out of their way to invest in your success.

If you identify with the second list and don’t see yourself at all in the first, don’t despair. In fact, you shouldn’t really be worried about whether you’re on the fast track or not. What’s most important is making a contribution to your team or department. Be sure that you’re focused on the right things and that your priorities are aligned with your boss’s.

The fast track is not a goal, after all; it’s a result of your superior performance. Once you begin to shine, your boss will notice, and you may very well recognize the signs of being on the fast track.

Your Extraordinary Career features proven success strategies and advice for recent graduates and young professionals from William J. White, who draws upon a successful corporate career, including as Chairman and CEO of a New York Stock Exchange-traded company.  Bill is now Professor at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University, and author of the career book for young professionals, From Day One: CEO Advice to Launch an Extraordinary Career.

Got a question? Email Bill White at Bill@FromDayOne.com