He Was Hired as a “Growth Lead” Based on Buzzwords—Then Handed a PIP with Metrics No One Could Define
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Getting promoted feels like a sweet win… right up until the job asks for skills nobody actually explained you needed.
One marketing employee spent nine years building a solid creative background in marketing, only to land an executive-level role that assumed a completely different kind of experience he didn’t actually have.
He approached the job the way he always had, focused on strategy and content direction, submitting plans for review before implementing anything.
That approach turned out to be the exact opposite of what the role expected, and he found himself in an early probation meeting for not acting “independently enough.”
All the stress had him questioning whether it was time to leave the industry altogether.
Keep reading for the full story.
I got hired for a role I wasn’t qualified for, tried to fake it till I make it, but didn’t make it…
I got hired for a role I wasn’t qualified for, tried to fake it till I make it, but didn’t make it.
I’ve worked in marketing for about 9 years now.
Soon he got a promotion that wasn’t sitting on the strongest foundation.
Started off as an assistant, eventually got promoted to “officer” because my colleague left and they needed to fill the space, or maybe even thought I deserved it.
To his credit, he did know a lot about his area of marketing.
Practically, my role never really changed. I was a creative, so graphic design, video editing, storyboarding, scripts, all that artsy crap.
Of course I learnt a lot about digital marketing along the way, website and social media management, KPI reporting, what have you.
However, I got a new manager who decided I wasn’t “high level” enough for my role.
But it was the job after that one that really gave him trouble.
I left this job and was later hired for a much higher role.
“Executive” level, whatever that means, as every genius on the team had that title.
I did the interview and guess I must have had my charisma card on me, because I got the job.
He came in with preconceived notions about what the role would be like.
Get into the business, my focus is strategy. Think I got this, it’s just like directing what type of content should go where, how to use socials and apply SEO copywriting etc.
Time goes on, I create documents and guides to share my plans on how we can move forward. Submit for review to implement.
That’s when the truth hits him like a ton of bricks.
Get pulled into an early probation meeting. I’m not operating at the level they were expecting.
I was expected to come in and start making changes independently without needing the level of direction or approval I thought I needed.
Turns out I somehow got myself into a role with much more senior expectations than I realized.
Yikes — no one wants to find themselves in a situation like this.
What did Reddit have to say?
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This commenter thinks this is a decent use case for a little help from AI.
Corporate job titles do have some nuance to them.
Sometimes jobs put you in a lose-lose situation.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who cleverly shuts down customer arguments about closing time.
Maybe what his superiors are looking for is just arrogance.
Getting hired for a role above your experience level isn’t necessarily the same thing as being wholly unqualified. In this case, it appeared the company forced this promotion before fully thinking it through.
It’s a shame that nobody bothered explaining what “senior level” independence was actually supposed to look like until he was already being penalized for lacking it.
Sometimes people are just set up to fail and this story is a great example of that.
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