Promotion Case Builder — Score Your Readiness, Draft the Packet

I've sat on promotion committees at three B2B SaaS companies over the last eight years. The reject rate runs 35-50% depending on the cycle. Almost every rejected packet has the same shape: heavy on adjectives ("strong collaborator", "strategic thinker"), light on specific artifacts, and missing at least one dimension the committee cares about. The candidate wrote a self-assessment; the committee needed a prosecutor's brief.

The math is simple. Six dimensions, each with a weight, each needing two to three specific artifacts. Miss any dimension and your weighted score drops below the bar. Generalize any evidence and a committee member tags it "vague" and your case loses momentum. This tool forces you to fill in concrete evidence for each dimension before you see the score — which is exactly the discipline a good packet requires.

Scope (30% weight). The biggest driver. What is the size of the surface area you own? For an IC: how many systems, products, or customer segments? For a manager: how many reports, how big a budget, how cross-functional? Scope is hard to fake because it shows up in calendar invites, org charts, and project docs. If your scope hasn't visibly grown in the last 12 months, you likely aren't ready for the next level regardless of craft.

Impact (20% weight). What shipped? What moved? Specific numbers only. "Grew ARR from $X to $Y" beats "drove revenue growth." "Cut latency from 800ms to 140ms" beats "improved performance." A packet with three clean impact numbers passes committees that a packet with five adjectives cannot.

Craft (15% weight). Depth in your discipline. For engineers: code quality, system design, hard technical problems solved. For PMs: discovery quality, experiment design, strategic clarity. For designers: portfolio depth, design-system contributions, craft ratings from design crits. Craft is the dimension senior committee members scrutinize hardest — they were promoted on craft and they look for it first.

Leadership (15% weight). Influence without authority or with it. Mentorship of juniors, technical direction, cross-team persuasion, hiring work, team culture contributions. A candidate who shipped solo carries less weight than a candidate who shipped solo and lifted two juniors a level while doing it.

Visibility (10% weight). Does leadership know your work exists? A promotion case that surprises your skip-level is already in trouble. Public artifacts — talks, blog posts, all-hands presentations, RFCs with heavy comment traffic — raise visibility without looking like politics. Candidates who are stuck under-visible often have the work; they just haven't shown it.

Tenure (10% weight). Time in role and time in level. Below 12 months in level is almost never promoted regardless of performance. 18-24 months is typical. Past 36 months with no promotion usually signals something wrong — either wrong fit, wrong manager, or wrong company. Tenure is a band, not a gate: you need enough to prove sustained performance but not so much that you're coasting.

Every claim in a promotion packet needs a linkable artifact. An artifact is a specific thing a committee member can open, read, or reference. Examples that qualify:

• A shipped feature's product URL or internal launch doc.
• A dashboard screenshot with the number circled and the date stamped.
• A design file or GitHub PR link.
• A recording or deck from a talk or presentation.
• A Slack message from a senior stakeholder with a specific endorsement.
• A peer review quote, attributed, with the reviewer's name.

Examples that do NOT qualify:

• "I led the team through a major transformation." No artifact; no dates; no number.
• "I'm known as the go-to person for X." Known by whom? Where's the receipt?
• "My manager says I'm operating at the next level." If your manager believes it, they should be in the room arguing for you — not quoted secondhand.

The committee will treat every claim without an artifact as unsubstantiated. Sometimes that means the entire dimension zeroes out even though your work was real. Artifacts are the armor.

The tool asks you to rate each dimension 1-5. Most candidates over-rate. Here's the calibration:

• 1 — Below current level. You are not currently operating at your own level on this dimension, let alone the next. Something is broken.
• 2 — At current level. You meet the bar for your current level. Most ICs sit here on most dimensions most of the time.
• 3 — Approaching next level. You've demonstrated the next-level behavior on at least one substantial project. Not yet consistent, but proof-of-concept has shipped.
• 4 — At next level. You are consistently operating at the next level on this dimension across the last 6-12 months. Two or more artifacts prove it.
• 5 — Past next level. You are operating a full level past the one you're asking for. Rare. If you score a 5, your packet is for a skip-level promotion, not an adjacent one.

Most successful promotion packets score 3-4 on most dimensions with one or two 4-5s on the dimensions where the candidate is strongest. A packet that scores uniformly 4 on every dimension is either (a) a truly exceptional candidate (rare) or (b) an over-rated self-assessment (common). Committees treat uniform-4 packets with suspicion.

The weighted total produces a readiness score 0-100. Interpretation:

• Under 55: not ready yet. Don't submit. Pick the lowest-scoring dimension and spend the next quarter closing it. Re-run the tool in 3-6 months.
• 55-69: borderline. Submit only if your manager is unambiguously supportive and committed to advocating. Otherwise you'll absorb a rejection that damages your next cycle's case.
• 70-84: ready. This is the band most successful promotions come from. Submit. Expect a 60-75% pass rate from this band at most companies.
• 85+: overdue. If you've been scoring 85+ for more than a cycle and haven't been promoted, there's a non-merit problem — your manager isn't advocating, the budget isn't there, or the level structure is broken. Have a direct conversation.

Most candidates who use this tool end up in the 55-69 band on first use and feel frustrated. That frustration is useful. It surfaces the exact dimension that's blocking the case and makes next quarter's goals concrete.

After you've run the tool, book 15 minutes with your manager. Bring one thing: the filled-in packet, printed. Walk through it dimension by dimension. Ask three questions:

1. "Looking at the evidence I've compiled, is anything missing or overstated?"
2. "On the dimensions where I scored myself lowest, what would a 4 look like? What project could I pick up in the next 90 days to demonstrate it?"
3. "If this packet went to committee this cycle, how would you advocate for it? Where would you expect pushback?"

Managers who are engaged will give you specific feedback and often volunteer to put their own advocacy in writing. Managers who dodge the conversation are signaling they won't fight for you in committee — which is itself critical information. If the answer to question 3 is fuzzy, you are not yet in the top-of-stack for your team's promotions and your packet isn't the problem.

Some candidates believe promotion is political — you get promoted when you ask loudly and persistently. This is partially true and mostly misleading. Promotions are political about timing (which cycle, which committee, which budget pool) and substantive about content (the packet, the evidence, the score).

Loudly asking for a promotion you haven't earned gets you denied and marks you as over-ambitious. Silently working and waiting for recognition gets you passed over for someone less strong who asked. The balanced play: demonstrate the next-level work for 6-9 months, then raise the promotion conversation with your manager with specific evidence, then formalize the ask with a packet during the next cycle.

The "when to ask" answer: ask when your honest readiness score is 70+ on this tool, when your manager agrees, and when your company has a live promotion cycle with budget. Asking at any other time is lower-leverage.

Some companies allow off-cycle promotions, usually triggered by retention risk or an expanded scope mandate. These run faster than regular cycles but with a higher bar — the case has to be airtight because there's less committee deliberation. If you're in a retention-driven conversation (competing offer, strong recruiter outreach), a packet at 75+ can move in 2-4 weeks instead of 3-6 months.

Title-only jumps (same pay, new title) are sometimes offered as consolation. Treat them carefully. A title jump without the pay bump locks you into a higher level expectation without the comp, and the next promotion will be harder because you've already "been promoted" on paper. If offered a title-only jump, counter with a 90-day pay review and get it in writing. If that's denied, decline the title change and ask for the full package next cycle.

Rejections happen. A well-run rejection conversation is a data-rich moment. Ask three questions:

1. "On which specific dimensions was the case weakest in the committee's view?"
2. "What would a successful packet next cycle look like — which new artifact or project would push the weakest dimension into range?"
3. "What support will you provide between now and the next cycle to get there?"

Write down the answers verbatim. Re-run this tool with the feedback incorporated. The second attempt — with the first cycle's rejection converted into a 90-day concrete plan — has a substantially higher pass rate than the first submission. Rejections that land well become accelerators; rejections that sting without producing a plan usually lead to disengagement and departure within 12 months.