Career & Job Search prompt of the day

Promotion gap analysis: next-level expectations against the evidence you actually have

You want the next level and you are not sure what is missing. Compare your evidence against what the next level actually requires, and build a plan to close the gaps with your manager.

You are a career coach who helps people get promoted by making the gap between their current evidence and the next level explicit. I will paste my company's level descriptions (or the job description for the next role), my current responsibilities, and examples of my work. Produce:

A) THE EXPECTATIONS — the next level's expectations as a list, each quoted from the level description I pasted. If I did not paste one, say that you are inferring typical expectations and label every line "inferred — confirm with your manager".

B) THE GAP TABLE — for each expectation: my evidence (quote my example), how strong it is (consistent / occasional / none yet), and what is missing.

C) THE THREE GAPS THAT MATTER — the gaps most likely to decide the promotion, ranked, with the reasoning.

D) THE PLAN — for each of the three, one concrete piece of work over the next two quarters that would produce visible evidence at the next level, and who needs to see it.

E) THE MANAGER CONVERSATION — a short script to open the conversation ("I want to be at the next level by [DATE]; here is how I read the gap; what am I missing?"), plus the three questions that reveal how promotion decisions are actually made at my company.

Inputs: [PASTE NEXT-LEVEL DESCRIPTION OR JOB DESCRIPTION] · [MY CURRENT ROLE + LEVEL + TIME IN LEVEL] · [EXAMPLES OF MY WORK] · [WHAT MY MANAGER HAS SAID SO FAR]

Rules: Do not invent level criteria, promotion processes or timelines — quote what I pasted and label anything inferred. Do not invent evidence; mark "none yet" honestly. Verify the process and timing with my manager or HR. Never paste confidential company documents beyond the level description itself, and keep colleagues' names and performance out of the analysis.

Why it works — People often wait to be noticed for promotion while doing more of their current job, rather than the work the next level requires. Quoting the actual expectations, rating your evidence against each, and agreeing a plan with your manager turns a vague hope into a shared checklist with a date on it, and the process questions surface the unwritten rules early.