Jade Bonacolta
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jade Bonacolta, a 31-year-old in Miami who previously worked at LinkedIn and Google. In May 2025, she left Google to work full-time on Archimedes, a membership community for LinkedIn thought leaders she co-founded. Business Insider has verified her employment and promotion history. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Before joining Google in 2022, I worked at LinkedIn for 6½ years and was promoted five times.
When I was seeking my first promotion from associate to senior associate, I asked my manager, “What are my responsibilities at my current level?” He laid them out. Then I asked, “How would my responsibilities differ if I were one level more senior?”
My manager explained that managers have to build a “business case” showing how their direct report is already exhibiting the responsibilities of the next level up.
I learned that simply asking those two questions gives you tremendous clarity on the path to promotion.
It can be easy to assume that you should only take on more responsibilities after getting promoted, but one of the biggest things I’ve learned about promotions — especially at large companies — is that you get promoted when you’re already operating at the next seniority level.
Here are four dos and don’ts if you’d like to try it for yourself.
Do speak with your manager
My manager kept a specific document outlining what was expected at each level. For example, if “identifying obstacles or risks to a project” was a Level 3 responsibility, Level 4 might be “identifying obstacles or risks to a project and proactively putting a mitigation plan in place.”
It’s easy to assume you’re doing everything you need to or that you’re already operating at a more senior level when you don’t know exactly what that looks like.
Thanks to these conversations, I had clarity and knew precisely what I needed to do to meet and exceed expectations so I’d have the best chance for a promotion in the next cycle; it was as if I had a blueprint.
Once I’d mastered the role of an associate, it was time to start taking on the responsibilities of a senior associate, delivering Level 4 quality work, and making sure my manager had visibility into it.
Do take action
When I was an associate on the sales productivity team at LinkedIn, our goal was to find innovative ways to increase sales quota attainment. In my junior role, I executed smaller aspects of that goal, such as creating reports and slide decks that summarized our recommendations.
My manager then reviewed those presentations every quarter with 20 global stakeholders on the sales leadership team. These stakeholder meetings were time-consuming for my manager, but necessary to ensure everyone was aligned.
I offered to not only create the slide decks, but to start presenting them myself. While it was uncommon for an associate to manage a meeting with senior vice presidents, I knew it was something a senior associate would try to do.
My manager was open to it, and he let me present at one of the meetings. After that presentation, he allowed me to take over more and more stakeholder updates. After a few weeks, I was fully owning all stakeholder management.
My manager had more time to work on our team’s strategy, and I got weekly visibility with senior executives. The executives were often shocked when they found out I was only an associate, since I was doing the role of a senior associate or even manager. Their votes of confidence helped tremendously in the next promotion cycle.
When promotion discussions came around, my manager could easily advocate for me because I was already operating at that higher standard.
Do make sure it’s for a role you truly want and avoid burnout
Many people will keep climbing the corporate ladder simply because there are more ladder rungs in front of them. Then, when they get to the top, they realize this isn’t what they wanted at all.
This is another reason it’s important to get clarity on what’s expected at each level. By doing so, you get a little glimpse into what your future work life could be if you continue on that path.
If you start picking up extra tasks, make sure you’re doing it for your professional growth and career development. You’re not just doing it for your team — you’re doing it for your own growth.
You want to feel inspired by the work you’re doing and ensure you’re not stretching yourself toward something that doesn’t interest you. Otherwise, that’s where burnout comes in — when you feel like what you’re doing is purposeless.
Don’t avoid current responsibilities
At Google, we had what were called 20% projects, in which we could work on something other than our current role for 20% of our time.
For example, if you’re in sales and you want to go into marketing, you could do a 20% project with the marketing team.
But here’s the thing: if you’re not performing well at your current role, you’re not even eligible to take on the 20% role and try to move into your next career pivot.
So if you do get to pick up new tasks, it’s so important to continue to excel in your core role while taking on higher-level work. I think a lot of people assume, Well, I picked up this new task, so that should set me up well for a promotion.
But if you didn’t deliver on your key results in your current role, that won’t help you get promoted — in fact, you might not even be considered for a promotion.
Working at the next level prepares you to excel
After being promoted five times in 6.5 years, I learned the most effective path to promotion isn’t waiting to be noticed — it’s demonstrating that you’re already operating at the next level.
When done right, you’ll find yourself not only promoted to the next level, but truly ready to excel once you get there.
Do you have a story to share about strategies for getting promoted in your Big Tech job? Contact this editor, Jane Zhang, at [email protected].
The post I was promoted 5 times in 6.5 years at LinkedIn. These 2 questions served as the blueprint for getting my promotions. appeared first on Business Insider.
