Should I nominate myself?

[isitcovidoracold]

I work in a specialist engineering sector in a professional services type job. Part of my role is that I have to get business from clients.

In a sector-focused online magazine, I came across what they are calling a "women's sector powerlist" for my specialist area, where you can get your name published and some of the interesting work you are doing as a woman. I know that I qualify for this.

Only problem is, they are asking for "nominations." While I don't think I would have any problem getting other people to nominate me if I asked them, there is no-one who would pro-actively do it (as no-one I know reads this magazine apart from my direct competitors and customers) and I feel really awkward asking someone to do it for me as it just seems big headed and the people I would ask work in other sectors and would probably not know how I fit the description unless I wrote the nomination for them, in which case I would feel very false.

AIBU to nominate myself? Do you think the list creators will react badly to it? How can I express why I have done it?

AIBU to think that the concept of "nominations" are a bit annoying and they most often seem to be imperative in most competitions/lists which involve women? In that women are supposed to be demure and wait to be noticed and not blow their own trumpets?

Write the submission and send it in yourself. Don't draw attention to it unless it needs the name of a proposer in which case you may need to ask a colleague in an unrelated area if they'd mind you borrowing their name.

Even if we all know these business power lists can be a bit fake, they can still be useful - (a) to the firm (for sales and PR reasons) and (b) to the individual (for career development reasons).

So it would be good to be on this power list.

This happened in a firm I was recently working with actually - woman nominated for power list by male bosses.

My advice is:
approach your line manager (if you get on with them) or otherwise another senior colleague who is the right kind of ally (Sales Director, Comms Director, HR Director?)
say 'I saw this opportunity to get some positive trade press coverage for our firm in my sector. It's a women's power list. It would help me to win more biz for the firm to be on this and it would demonstrate that in this firm we are taking diversity seriously. There aren't many women in my sector and it makes me and what I am selling on all our behalf stand out in a good way'. So in raising it you make it less about you individually and as much as possible about the benefit to the firm
*at least one supportive colleague will say 'OK this looks good, what do we have to do ... eek fill in a 900 page form' at which point you say 'would it be helpful if I wrote a first draft (which will be actually the final draft) with some ideas about what to say?'
*it's all about making it as easy as possible for you to be nominated ... by your colleagues. In the end they won't have to do much except put their name on a nomination and press send
*depending on the sort of firm you work in, it might provoke a bigger discussion about tactics to help promote the firm in the trade press overall, which you can volunteer to be on the working group for

Sorry some weird bold thing happening there

DH saw a similar thing and asked his line manager to nominate him. He also ended up asking big boss and even bigger boss for nominations too. He ended up on the short list. If you feel like they would nominate you if they knew then it doesn't hurt to ask!

@isitcovidoracold Do come back and tell us what happens. Good luck