How To Go About Performance Reviews?
Happy New Year! It's performance review season, here are some tips on how to nail your self-review! 🙌
By Furquan Ahmad · January 6, 2023Originally sent in my Ready Set Grow newsletter
Hi Reader,
What’s a good way to go about writing your self-review, now that there’s a small shift with tech companies conducting annual reviews instead of 6-month reviews?
With more work to represent and showcase, it’s harder but more important than ever to be concise and provide context for the reader.
Don’t Make A Laundry List
Personally I think it’s fine on your first draft to have a long list of what you’ve achieved, but from there it’s really important to cut this list down to showcase your most impactful work, mainly because it will help your manager tell a better story about yourself, and it stops you running into the risk of diluting your story.
Provide Context
Providing context helps readers understand WHY your contributions were beneficial to your project and team. Orientate things towards the expectations for your role and level you’re at or aspiring to be at. Keeping things concise is still key here.
Get Feedback From Peers
Partnering with your peers who worked on the same project as yourself can be a good way to write a better narrative for your self-review. Hearing others’ opinions on the best way to write about the projects you’ve been on is always useful.
Get other people’s perspective on your self-review from peers outside your team, ask for thoughts on things you’ve missed out or what you could’ve done better.
Structure You Can Follow
Main Bullet Point - (1-2 sentences about theme/project)
1-3 sub bullet points - highlight additional impact, provide context etc…
Example
I launched (product x) which delivered (these results in relation to goals)
I specifically designed (key features) by doing this work I (created this value for our users)
This demonstrates that I (met/exceeded this specific expectation for my level).
Driving metrics
I developed (new feature) that increased (this core metric) by (xyz percent).
Collaboration I Collaborated Across [Teams/Org/Company] (multiple examples if appropriate).
I did [this work] in collaboration with [these people/teams].
I collaborated with [person/teams] to [do this specific work]. We [accomplished this] which had [this impact on the team/org/company]
This demonstrates that I [meet/exceed this specific expectation of my level].
Conclusion
I hope you find some of these tips I’ve picked up useful as well. There’s a lot of work that goes into PSC to make sure people receive the correct rating. Personally I wouldn’t get too caught up in your rating and focus on what you can control day to day.
Take Care,
Furquan
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