Trying to get a job promotion is a pretty stressful experience, you want to advance your career but at the same time avoid coming across as overly ambitious and pushy.

But without any long-term career goal to aim for, it’s easy to see why so many employees become demotivated if they don’t strive towards gaining promotions at work and bettering their circumstances.

If you’ve got your heart set on climbing up the career ladder, then that’s great – but there are a few job promotion pitfalls that you’ll want to try to avoid on your way to the top.

Losing sight of your long-term goals

If there’s an opening come available at your current place of work, it’s easy to get overexcited and lose sight of your long-term career goals. The idea of getting a job promotion, even if it’s not in an area or position you see yourself staying for the duration, can lead us to forget about our wider goals.

Think carefully about where this promotion will lead you in the future and decide if that fits in well with what you’re hoping to achieve in the long run before you put yourself out there.

Asking too much

Many new employees start their new jobs with big dreams and even bigger ambitions of where they want to be career-wise. However, what you need to concentrate on at first is showcasing your abilities in the position you currently hold instead of trying to overreach to a higher level.

Sure, showing that you want to develop within the businesses is admirable – just wait until you’ve built a solid reputation as a consistently reliable and competent employee before you start seeking a promotion.

Trying too hard

Sucking up to the boss isn’t going to go unnoticed. Chances are your colleagues will pick up on your attitude towards them and generally speaking they won’t like it either. Getting on the wrong side of your current colleagues won’t just make you unpopular, but they’ll begin to lose any respect they previously had for you – a big problem if this promotion will see you as their manager or team leader.

Remember, you need to grab the attention of managers by working hard and showing them your capabilities – not by sucking up to them and alienating other employees in the process.

Seeing a promotion as a fix-all solution

If you’re unhappy in your current position, it doesn’t necessarily mean that getting a promotion is going to fix all of your problems at work. You might earn a little more and have a few new responsibilities, but if there’s a wider range of issues that are causing you to be miserable in your current role then it’s highly unlikely that a promotion is going to solve anything.

Have a long think about if this promotion would remedy your career blues and if not, then perhaps you need to start thinking of moving on, rather than moving up.