亲爱的安妮：我希望你能给我些建议，因为我觉得可能有很多人和我一样——而这在某种程度上是问题的关键所在。2014年，我唯一的决心就是最终获得晋升，但看起来希望不大。我所在的公司非常好，我并不想离开。然而，我们公司在经济衰退期砍掉了大量的管理层，因此短期内可供晋升的高层职务是少之又少，而且公司内部（更不用提公司外部）符合晋升要求的人员已经排成了长龙。

    所以我觉得我的问题在于，我现在该怎么办？我已经在尽力表现自己，例如在现有的岗位上拿出出色的业绩，但是大家也都在这样做。你能给我提一些建议，帮助我继续留在公司发展吗？——Rooted but Restless

亲爱的R.R.：你觉得跟你有类似遭遇的人还有很多，这一点你说的没错——而且，公司上层人士可能正在绞尽脑汁，思考如何把你留在公司，希望这多少能给你一些安慰。波士顿职业发展公司ClearRock副总裁劳拉•博伊森说：“公司高层基本上都在思考这个现实的问题。”她还说：“那些在经济下行时曾帮助公司完成目标的重要员工如今正期待获得晋升。然而问题在于，在公司决定保持现有精简构架时，他们有这个机会吗？”

    这个问题已经积压有一段时间了，这也让很多失望的中层管理人员难有出头之日，部分原因是因为婴儿潮一代的高层大军由于受经济衰退（以及房地产危机）的影响未能如期退休。

    如今出现晋升难现象的另一个原因在于，正如你所看到的，管理层的工作岗位的确越来越少。与此同时，技术岗位的数量呈爆发式增长。例如，求职网站TheLadders在11月份调查了约6万家公司后发现，其中含有“经理”头衔的岗位的增长率比岗位平均增长率低25%，含有“总监”头衔的岗位增长率比岗位平均增长率低50%。在增长速度排名前10的工作岗位中，有7个岗位都是技术岗位或与技术相关的岗位。只有三个岗位（人员会计师、法律助理和行政助理）对STEM（科学、技术、工程和数学）领域专长没有作出要求。

    很多跟你级别一样的人对自己的期望做出了相应的调整。不妨看看下面这项调查：去年12月，咨询公司BlessingWhite对全美全职雇员2014年将要采取的职业生涯举措进行了调查，结果发现，超过半数（58%）有上升趋势的员工希望去从事新的项目，要么在现有的公司做，要么去其他的公司。只有13%的员工认为他们会得到晋升。

Dear Annie: I hope you can give me some ideas, because I think I'm probably just one of many -- which, in a way, is the whole problem. My only resolution for 2014 is to finally get promoted, but it's looking unlikely. I work for a really good company, so I don't want to leave, but so many layers of management were done away with during the recession that there are now very few senior jobs likely to be available anytime soon, and lots of internal (not to mention external) qualified people in line.

    So I guess my question is, what can I do now? I'm already doing the obvious things, like producing great results in my current position, but so is everybody else. Can you suggest anything that might help me hang on here? -- Rooted but Restless

Dear R.R.: You're right to surmise that you have plenty of company -- and, if it's any consolation, people upstairs may be thinking pretty hard right now about how to hold on to you. "This is a real problem that's very much on the minds of senior management," notes Laura Poisson, a vice president at Boston-based career development firm ClearRock.

    "Valuable players who helped companies meet their goals during the downturn are ready to move up," she says. "The question is, how can they, when organizations are determined to stay lean?"

    It's a conundrum that's been building for some time now, with lots of frustrated people stuck in middle management, partly because legions of boomers in corner offices, spooked by the recession (and the real estate crash), aren't retiring on schedule.

    Another reason promotions are scarce these days is that, as you've seen, there are simply fewer management jobs. At the same time, the number of tech jobs is exploding. Job site TheLadders, for instance, studied about 60,000 employers in November and found that the growth rate of job titles with the word "manager" in them is about 25% lower than the average growth rate, and titles containing the word "director" are growing 50% more slowly than average. Of the top 10 fastest-growing job titles, seven were in tech or were tech-related. Only three -- staff accountant, paralegal, and administrative assistant -- pertained to jobs that required no STEM expertise.

    Many people in your position have adjusted their expectations accordingly. Consider: When consultants BlessingWhite surveyed full-time employees across the U.S. in December about their next career moves in 2014, they found that over half (58%) of upwardly mobile types expect to start on a new project, either where they work now or at some other company. Only 13% think they'll get promoted.