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Factor 11: Your Track Record
You’re measured by results — your track record. It determines who trusts you, who hires you, and what work you get.
A strong one builds respect and momentum. But even if yours isn’t where you want it to be, seeing it clearly gives you a platform to grow.
Awareness — of what’s strong and what’s not — is the first step toward progress.
Why it's important
You'll be judged by it...
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In some roles, a track record is easier to define than in others — none more so than for leaders and sales professionals. Leaders are measured by their ability to deliver against goals and budgets; salespeople by the targets they hit and deals they close.
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In accounting, finance, and procurement, a track record shows in how well someone manages cash flow, optimises inventory, or cuts costs without compromising performance.
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For project managers, success is defined by whether projects deliver the intended outcomes — ideally benchmarked on a scale of 1–5 — and whether they come in on time and within budget.
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HR professionals can be assessed against a scorecard: time-to-hire, quality of hire, retention rates, average tenure, revenue per employee, and employee satisfaction all say a lot about their impact.
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Rock Star, Passenger or Drifter?
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When you're being considered for new jobs, salary increases, bonuses, promotion and things like who's going to be given the best projects, challenges, most enjoyable work - decision makers will want to know what your track record - in simple terms, there are the high achievers - consistently delivering top-tier results, the core people putting in a solid but not standout performance and the under performers - below expectations.
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You can expect people to say, he or she is a top performer, a rock star. Or yeah, he or she is solid "OK" or otherwise don't touch them with a bargepole - a bargepole is a long pole.
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Track record is associated with recent performance and career history, many decisions are based on the principle that past performance is a predictor of future success - so track record is super important. Decisions are weighted with recent achievement (last 5 years) being highly valued and what do did 7-10 years ago, particularly 15+ years ago much less so.
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Also of importance stability, agility of your employment history.
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Exactly what does your track record look like?
If someone were to map out your track record, what observations would they make.
Most employers are constantly paying attention to peoples performance on an ongoing basis, most often monthly or quarterly. In the most senior roles, objectives and targets are often more associated with longer term impacts - so these may look more like half-yearly or yearly.​
Track Record Matrix (Scope–Scale–Recency)
Below is a lens for looking at your track record — how your scope, scale, and recency of achievement might be perceived.
Employers will be keen to understand your track record
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​For people in senior and specialist roles, your employer, if interviewing for promotion or otherwise new prospective employer, if interviewing for new jobs will most probably look to understand your targets and actual performance over each of the last 3 years.
Is your success recent and relevant, or have you peaked in the distance past. Employers tend to be more interested in what someone's done in terms of performance in the last 5 years than 10-15 years previously. i.e. is it recent and relevant or outdated.​​​​
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How relevant is this to you?​
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Aside of keeping your job and being well regarded by your colleagues, the importance that you attach to your track record is likely to depend on your motivations and ambition. If you are ambitious, you'll be more interested take ownership for, develop and progress your track record - the starting point is very clearly defining exactly what your track record looks like; context, scope, scale and achievement.
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A matter of context!
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Your track record has been established in a certain set of situations. To assess it yourself, or for someone else to assess it - it's important to understand the context! Without understanding the environment (industry, market conditions, resources, challenges), you can’t fairly judge the rest.
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Examples of context include: working in a business function that may have repeatedly failed over a period of 2+ years to perform, being asked to increase performance whilst expected to reduce costs, working for a company that' the underdog or alternatively, working for the #1 brand in which perhaps everything is in your favour.
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What was attributable to you as opposed to things that were going to happen anyway? The change that you drove, results achieved, and tangible value created. Were you responsible tor making things happen or a passenger on the bus!
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Quantitative and qualitative
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There's the hard facts (quantitative), like how much you sold, your impact on increasing marketing leads, your increase in customer problem resolutions or the amount of cash collected from customers - typically a target figure, a percentage and being time bound i.e. monthly, yearly.
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And there are qualitative aspects about your track record - this could be characteristics such as you created a highly positive team however more attention will be paid to quantitative outcomes.
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One of the qualitative aspects about someone's track record is your behaviour, and what people ​ will say about your behaviour, if you're being considered for a promotion, redundancy or when being hired - will they say you were unable to be resilient when the going got tough or failed to recover when things went wrong.
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Scope and Scale
Meaning the size and complexity of your remit or that of the job holder: budget, geography, team size, strategic reach. Related to scope, is the scale – the magnitude of the challenge or results (local vs global, small vs multi-billion operations) and depth
– the level of expertise, complexity, or insight you or the person being assessed demonstrated.
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Stability and agility.
Stability in the context of track record - are you considered to have a stable employment history, and a stable record of consistently performing at your existing company - do you perform well on an ongoing basis or is your performance unreliable. Agility being able to adapt to changing circumstances - such as doing different things, working on different projects or job types while staying effective. Sometimes it can be deemed to be a negative characteristic if someone stays in a company for a lengthily period of time e.g. 10+ years, they can be perceived as being a "lifer" and as not able to change! Then, at the other end of the spectrum... steadiness; not jumping around from one employer to another excessively without good reason.​
What it's determined by!
What next?
Jot Down In Your Note Taking App
What's the context, scope and scale of your track record?
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Jot down a summary of your performance in your current job including the current and previous year.
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Write down the headlines your track record over the last 3-5 years.
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You may wish to make a note of your career trajectory and accomplishments over the last 10-15 years.
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In what areas are you excelling and otherwise struggling.
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What gaps do you wish to address?
​Reflection Prompts:
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Do your past achievements align with your desired future roles?
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Have you demonstrated consistency over multiple roles?
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Could any setbacks block opportunities, and how will you address them?​