I was thinking about career growth a while back, and I remember one of my former bosses who was passed up for a promotion. This was a boss who always handed her work off to her assistant, who would take extra long lunches and leave work early on a consistent basis, and in general didn’t really push her community to do anything special. But when a job opening came up in the company that she wanted, she was absolutely shocked that she was passed up. Suddenly I heard cries about how she had seniority, and I have to say, it almost made me laugh out loud when I heard that. She wasn’t even doing her own job, let alone proving herself worthy of a promotion! Since then, I have heard people talk about seniority all the time, and I have come to realize that doesn't tell the whole story at all. They could be incredible employees that have been with the company for 15 years, OR they could be mediocre employees that managed to go 15 years without being fired.
Hiring someone new is really not a fun task, so people are often allowed to coast quite a bit before they are fired. In other words, people can stay at their job a lot of times by barely getting the minimum done, sad to say. But after years, they might suddenly find themselves with seniority! But do years of barely skirting by (or even being average) in any way make them promotion-worthy?
I don't mean to say that seniority means nothing – If two people are providing similar value to their company, and one person has seniority, that person will likely get the nod. Plus loyalty definitely is important and should be rewarded. Someone who has been a rockstar AND has been with the company for 15 years has immense value. But this is a far cry from assuming a promotion is guaranteed purely because of seniority. Instead, it should be considered one of many potential assets, rather than a golden ticket to a promotion.
I’m sure I’m going to get a lot of flack for this post – who wants to be told that their seniority may not be as valuable as they thought it was? But in the end, I think that this type of post is needed as a reality check. Rather than wait for seniority to work its magic, there are probably many other factors that the powers that be care about, and understanding what those factors are will help much more in securing that promotion.
What do you think? How valuable should seniority be?