How to prepare a professional interview of internal promotion in 2022

How to prepare a professional interview of internal promotion with your employer?

In this article you will discover how to prepare an internal promotion interview with your employer.

Preparing for this type of interview requires identifying and following a strategy that allows you to reach an agreement that is as beneficial for you as it is for your employer.

By following these tips, you will maximize your chances of getting an internal promotion that meets your needs, abilities, and values.

If you are looking for effective advice for a successful internal promotion interview, discover now the key points that will be covered in this article.

Here are the different parts of this article on how to prepare an internal promotion interview with your employer:

Prepare for negotiation
Understand the needs of your company
Check if a negotiation is possible and which points are negotiable
Define your goals and what you are willing to negotiate
Answer the objections of your employer to convince him
Offer win-win solutions to meet the needs of your company
Prepare to refuse an unsatisfactory internal promotion
Take advantage of your experience in terms of negotiating an internal promotion

Do not waste time and discover our tips now!

How to prepare a professional interview of internal promotion with your employer in 8 steps

1 – Prepare for negotiation

Preparing for negotiation involves opening your imagination to the different options that may come your way before getting an internal promotion.

In this first phase, it is important to mentally imagine how to organize internal promotion interviews.

The success of these interviews depends on the quality of your preparation.

Each interview should help you get closer to your goals while staying focused on what is important to your company.

You must show that you understand their needs and that you are ready to help them without immediately accepting what they want and without pretending that your employer will respond immediately to your needs.

Summarizing, show that you are willing to find a mutually satisfactory agreement.

At the end of each interview, ask yourself questions to understand if the exchange was productive i.e. if it allowed both parties to move towards a fair solution.

If communication with your company is not productive, try to understand what you need to change to move in the direction of your goals while considering the needs of your firm.

After each interview, prepare a summary of the meeting and send it to your interlocutor indicating the current state of the negotiation, your proposals to overcome any discrepancies and the next points you would like to address.

Doing this will allow you to formalize the exchanges and confirm your commitment to find a suitable agreement.

2 – Understand the needs of your company

Your goal is to show that you are an open minded person and that you are totally motivated to understand the needs of your company.

If you doubt your ability to listen, you can rely on active listening or emphatic listening as defined by the great American psychologist Carl Rogers.

Active listening requires being extremely present during the communication with your interlocutor.

The first objective of active listening is to understand an individual’s point of view without allowing your mind to influence the perception of what you have understood.

To understand a person therefore requires putting aside your own vision of the world to enter his world.

This consists of temporarily giving up what is important for you to understand what is important for the other person.

Practicing active listening effectively is not easy and requires great practice.

But if you want to become a better communicator, active listening is a communication tool you cannot give up.

Listening actively allows you to communicate at a very powerful level of communication.

By listening to the person in front of you and rephrasing, you will create a deep connection with him.

When the other person sees that you are listening to him and you understand him, he feels immediately closer to you and all the mental barriers that can influence your exchange suddenly disappear.

You are no longer adversaries, you become partners.

For this reason, to understand the needs of your company, you can use active listening.

Another benefit of active listening is that it allows you to ask better quality questions that are questions that your employer has not asked himself yet.

And if you are able to answer these questions effectively before him, you are likely to get an acceptable internal promotion.

3 – Check if a negotiation is possible and which points are negotiable

Identifying the needs of your company will allow you to ask questions to understand if a negotiation is possible and to see what you can really negotiate.

A common mistake at this point is to think that your boss is already ready to negotiate.

Your employer may expose you to a number of needs and you may think that these needs are so important that he is probably ready to start a negotiation.

But it is quite possible that your company keeps for itself its most important needs or that it does not perceive its main needs.

In this sense, organizing an internal promotion interview requires preparing in advance a series of questions that will allow your company to become aware of its own needs.

To get there, you need to interact with everyone you collaborate with.

Do not settle for their answers and focus on their nonverbal communication because it will allow you to highlight real needs against which you can bounce back during the other interviews.

Collecting all this information will give you a better understanding of the real needs of your company and the challenges of your future position.

This is when you will be able to ask good questions to test your assumptions and make proposals to your company.

4 – Define your goals and what you are willing to negotiate

You now have more specific information about your business needs, job challenges and what is negotiable.

You now need to define the goals you absolutely want to reach at the end of this negotiation for internal mobility.

Ask yourself questions to understand if this new position will allow you to meet your professional and personal needs.

How does this promotion make sense to me?

What are the main constraints of this position?

What new skills will I need to develop to succeed in this position?

How will this position change affect my privacy?

What salary am I willing to accept for this type of job?

What will be the price to pay if I accept this job?

Is this position in line with my most important values or not?

Is it really worthwhile to accept this position or is it better to reject this proposal?

Answering these questions will help you understand what is negotiable for this job and what is not.

If this position respects your values and meets your needs, then this post is really what you need, otherwise you’d better refuse it.

5 – Answer the objections of your employer to convince him

During the negotiation, you will sooner or later be exposed to objections.

There are several ways to handle objections.

What is certain is that if you do not manage it better, you will not get what you want.

Here is just one example of how to handle an objection about the salary you would like to receive.

Your employer is interested in your skills but is not ready to give you the salary you ask for.

Even then, you need to listen more and ask questions that identify the motivations of your employer.

It is possible that your interlocutor is unable to assess the added value that you are able to bring to your company.

You can show him how you will contribute to the success of your organization by providing concrete examples from your understanding of your company’s needs.

If you are unsure, make assumptions or show what you understood about the needs of your company.

Here is a short example:

my dialogue with Mr … made me understand that you have this type of need, if my understanding is good, I think that I will be able to allow you to solve this problem in such a way and that will allow you to save a lot of money in the three next years.

This short example allows you to use a contrast effect. You show that the benefits you are able to bring to your business go well beyond a salary whose amount becomes almost insignificant.

6 – Offer win-win solutions to meet the needs of your company

If your business understands your added value then you are well on your way to getting a quality internal promotion.

First of all, listen to your employer’s proposals and invite him to take the first step.

Do not just settle for words and ask for a written proposal.

If you can get it, do not accept it and prepare a better proposal for both you and your employer.

This is to propose win-win solutions.

If you manage to come up with a mutually beneficial deal, you will have every chance of getting an internal promotion to match your value.

To propose win-win solutions use your imagination by positioning yourself in three positions:

Your own position
That of your interlocutor
That of a neutral observer

Doing this will help reduce your subjectivity and find better solutions for your business and for yourself.

7 – Prepare to refuse an unsatisfactory internal promotion

If, despite all your efforts, you cannot find a mutually satisfactory agreement, it is better to refuse the offer of your employer.

Stay on good terms but do not accept this promotion.

If you are one of those people who have a hard time saying no, you probably need to strengthen your self-esteem to be more assertive.

If you are afraid of your employer’s reaction, focus on the consequences of accepting an unfair deal for your health, family, career, etc.

No matter what situation you are in.

Do not accept an agreement that is not good for you.

8 – Take advantage of your experience in terms of negotiating an internal promotion

In the end, what matters most in this negotiation is your learning.

What did you learn about your company?

What did you learn about yourself?

What do you need to change to become a better negotiator?

You have just discovered how to prepare an internal promotion interview with your employer.

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Read this article in other languages

Français : Comment préparer un entretien de promotion interne
Italiano: Preparare un colloquio di promozione interna con il tuo datore di lavoro