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Is the use of "not to mention getting a promotion" in the following sentence natual? If not, how to rewrite it? The main idea is: working hard is a must to have a job, getting a promotion needs to work even harder.

It is a hard fact that only diligent employees who devote the majority of their time and energy on sharping professional skills can get themselves employed, not to mention getting a promotion

Daniel Wu
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  • The sentence is not very natural. There is a mixup of formal and colloquial terms and grammatical constructions are off. It's a mistake to try to write motivational text before mastering the details. – John Lawler Jan 15 '20 at 16:04
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    It's not that bad, don't get discouraged. I think sharpening their professional skills would make the register more consistent, and grammatically it should be to sharpening not on sharpening, because of devote. I also think that let alone promoted would make the grammar neater. Your can... getting a promotion doesn't really work. Kate Bunting corrects it to get, but you could also consider dropping it altogether and letting the first get run on. – JD2000 Jan 15 '20 at 16:33

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Yes, it is natural. Another way to say it is let alone get a promotion. The sense is that getting a job is difficult enough in itself, before you even start to think about getting promoted.

Kate Bunting
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