Your performance review is an important opportunity to review your goals and accomplishments and receive feedback on your past performance and suggestions for improvement. Performance reviews can be used to justify raises or promotions or to request additional responsibility, so it’s important that your performance is accurately documented. With a healthy amount of upfront planning, a performance review can be a positive experience that can further your career.

5 Tips to Prepare for and Nail Your Performance Review:

  1. Keep a log of your goals and accomplishments. Ahead of your review, it’s a good idea to make a list of the topics you would like to cover during your performance review meeting. Organize your list into sections that include goals, achievements, and challenges.
  2. Know your manager’s expectations. The right balance between your desire and your manager’s expectation can only be found with discussions and mutual understanding. This is the first step towards achieving prosperity and balance in your work life.
  3. Learn how to respond to feedback. No matter what your boss says in a performance review, you can help determine where the conversation goes by asking specific questions that focus on the how, the why, and the when, ultimately helping you excel in your role.
  4. Confirm follow-up actions. Before the conversation with your manager ends, be sure that you are both clear and comfortable with the agreed next steps and the associated timeframes. After the meeting, review your notes and diarize time to focus on any follow-up tasks.
  5. Keep the conversation going. Just because your performance review is over, it doesn’t mean you and your manager should forget about it until the next review season comes around. Why not ask your manager if you can schedule a series of follow-up conversations over the next few months? This will ensure that you both stay focused on the bigger picture.

When approached thoughtfully, performance reviews can be quite empowering. To achieve this, try shifting performance reviews away from an antiquated once-a-year conversation. Instead, focus on having more frequent and quality conversations with continuous feedback. By receiving real-time feedback, coaching, and correction, issues can be resolved more quickly and effectively. As a result, managers are able to truly measure performance.