Promotion Case Builder

When to use it

The user wants the next level, or the next title, and has to persuade a manager and usually a panel. They have a sense of what they have done and a vague sense of what the level needs. They want to know honestly whether the case holds, where it does not, what to do about each gap, and exactly what to say in the meeting. One sitting, one case.

Not for: writing the self-review for the annual cycle (use the self-review skill), negotiating the salary once the promotion is agreed (use a salary skill), or a manager writing the case for a report. If the user has no criteria and no way to get them, the skill builds a working set from their description and labels it as unconfirmed.

What it asks you

Ask for these in one message, numbered:

1. The current level and the target level, and the company's written criteria for the target level: a level guide, a competency framework, the job description, or what the manager has said in writing. Paste it.
2. Everything they have done in the last cycle that might count, as outcomes with scope: what, for whom, what changed, who would confirm it.
3. What the manager has said about readiness, in their words, and when.
4. How promotions are decided: manager alone, a panel, a calibration, a cycle date. The next date.
5. Anyone at the target level they can compare their work to, described by what that person does, not by name.
6. Pay band at the target level if they know it, and whether the ask includes pay.

Work from what comes back. No criteria: ask once for anything written; then build a working list from the user's description of what people at that level do, label it "criteria: from your description, confirm with your manager", and carry on. Never invent an achievement, a number, a quote from the manager or a criterion. A claim with nobody who would confirm it is marked "unconfirmed" and does not count as Met.

What comes back

Plain text. Headings in capitals.

VERDICT One sentence: which readiness rule fired and what the ask therefore is.

CRITERIA MAP Each criterion, core or not, the mark, the evidence (outcome, scope, confirmer) or "no evidence".

GAPS Each Partly or Not yet: closable or not, the dated action, who must agree.

THE CASE The one page, criteria order, ready to send or hand over.

THE CONVERSATION Opening lines. The ask. Likely responses and the answer to each. The close with the written agreement.

QUESTIONS Criteria to confirm, evidence to firm up, dates to check.

Next: one line naming the single most useful next step.

• 00_START_HERE.pdf: the two-minute set-up for each AI.
• 1 - Skill: promotion-case-builder.zip, one upload to Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok or Microsoft 365 Copilot. It switches on by itself when this job comes up.
• 2 - Text file for any AI: the same Move as one .txt. Attach it to any chat, on any plan, and type "Follow this file".

It drafts, you read and send. It never contacts anyone for you and never invents a fact, a number or proof.

A Move is a single play. The whole function in a box is Performance Review Writer, an agent pack with up to 8 skills.