To level up in your career—while staying in a company you love—you often have to be willing to move around, whether you’re changing locations or stepping into new roles. The employees at AdRoll Group have experienced a lot of movement in their careers with the company in different ways. Some moved across the country while others have taken on a new role to bolster their experience, all while working toward the career they wanted.
If you’re trying to find room for growth in your current company, get some inspiration and ideas from these AdRoll Group employees.
Get Closer to Where You Want to Work
When working for a global company, the role you want may not always be right in front of you. In the case of the Head of Product Strategy, Larissa Licha, it was in San Francisco—across the country from New York, where she first started working for AdRoll. Licha knew she needed to be in San Francisco for the move she wanted to make.
“I talked to my mentor and let him know I wanted to work on attribution, although I knew there wasn’t a defined role yet. I knew if I moved to San Francisco, I’d be closer to product and engineering, which I was passionate about. All of a sudden, I found myself in product interviews, and two years ago, I relocated to San Francisco, where the company gave me a few engineers to work with and let me figure stuff out.”
The challenge in making the first step toward a leap like this, or even having the initial conversation, maybe what so many struggle with: imposter syndrome. If you’re feeling this way, follow in Licha’s steps and connect with a mentor:
“I really needed people to believe in me, give me a nudge, and see something in me that I didn’t necessarily see in myself at the time. That gave me the opportunity to grow in a new area. That’s what people gave me at AdRoll Group.”
Be Open to Flex Your Skills On the Road
Sometimes, you have to take to smaller steps before you take a big leap. In the case of Emma Gilroy, those smaller steps lead her to London, from Dublin, and from account management to business operations. Now she is Global Head of Customer Operations at AdRoll Group.
“That opportunity [to move to business operations] came about because we were going through a change in the London office operations and I had an opportunity to travel and assist in upleveling the account management team there.”
During her time on this temporary relocation, she was able to work closely with the business operations manager, identifying opportunities to drive efficiency within the accounts team. That’s when she was able to make her move into a new team, and eventually a new location.
“This led to an opening on the business operations team, managing the vendor that supported our account managers. That was a global role so it exposed me to all the many offices and teams, and later opened doors for me to relocate.”
While taking on the new temporary role was key in Gilroy’s relocation, it requires more than flexibility to get where you want to go. Gilroy positioned herself as the clear candidate for the roles she wanted.
“I’ve put myself in a position where I’m the obvious candidate through proven success and tangible results. I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve had an idea of what direction I wanted to move toward, and I think I’ve had luck and good timing on my side, but positioning yourself as the obvious candidate definitely makes the hiring decisions a lot easier.”
Don’t Back Down from a Challenge
Moving into a new role will not be easy—and getting it approved by management may be even harder. For Licha, this challenge was a chance to prove she was ready to make the move.
“I think I was viewed as too inexperienced to immediately move into account management. If you were looking at only my record, that was true, but when I moved into sales development, I didn’t feel challenged. I exceeded quota immediately, I liked building relationships, and I really enjoyed the product and getting to know it.”
She was told he would have to stay within his role for three months before she could move, and this challenge fueled her to step up to the plate. Not only did she take on a side project, but she continually met her sales quotas.
Licha explains, “I was the global lead in appointments set, I had my side project, and I translated all of our content into German to help prove I was capable of more things.” Eventually, with support and advocacy from her manager, she did what she set out to do: “I proved myself in account management.”
Find Advocates Within the Company
For many of the employees at AdRoll, internal movement was a mix of personal determination and the help of managers and mentors. The first step in getting this support is being transparent and mastering your core role.
Solutions Engineer Tobor Wentum advises transparency. “Let your manager know early that an interest is developing. For example, if you’re in sales and want to be in product, mention to your manager that you want to be in product, listing your reasons and the ways you can add value for your team.”
The next important step is focusing on doing your core role the best that you can. “Number one, excel at your core role and master your day-to-day responsibilities. Get to a place where everyone has really strong confidence in your abilities,” says Gilroy.
How do you do that? Gilroy continues, “Part of that—excelling in your core role—is being able to work and operate in a smart manner; get your work done in a timely, efficient way; do it to a high standard; and tackle problems head-on, becoming more solutions-oriented.”
Make Your Move
If you’re ready for growth with your current company, look for room to expand—whether you move across the world, take on a temporary role, or have an honest conversation with your boss about where you want to go within the organization. The employees at AdRoll prove that if you want to transition, you can make it happen, you just have to take the right steps to get there.
This article was originally published on Glassdoor. It was republished in partnership with Glassdoor and published with permission.
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