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Career advice

Reviews & performance

You'd like to know where you stand, and to have some say in how your year gets told.

What to understand about performance reviews

A review tends to be written from memory, by someone busy, about a year they saw only part of. Your manager was in some of your meetings and few of your quiet afternoons. What reaches the page is what they remember, what other people mentioned, and what you told them along the way. In many companies the rating is also talked through with other managers before you hear it. So by the time the two of you sit down, most of it is already settled.

Which means the room to move is earlier, and smaller, than people expect. Asking what a great year would look like while there's still time to have one. Asking, a few months in, how the review would read if it were written today. Keeping a few lines a week about what you finished and who it helped. None of this is self-promotion. It's giving your manager something to work with when they have to describe your year to people who never saw it.

The hard part is that a review is partly about you and partly about the company. Ratings are often compared across a team, the money follows a budget set somewhere else, and two fair managers can read the same year differently. Companies decide for companies. A middling rating after a strong year does happen, and it stings. Sometimes, too, the review is right and still hard to hear. If yours usually match how you think the year went, a light touch is plenty.

What people often get wrong about performance reviews

  • You might think“If I do good work, my manager will know, and the review will show it.”
    More oftenGood work is where it starts, and a fair amount of it happens where nobody is watching. Your manager can only write about what reached them and stayed with them, so their picture of your year may be thinner than yours, or simply different. It costs little to find out how far apart the two are while there is still time to close the gap.One thing to try: Ask how your review would go today →
  • You might think“A strong rating means the raise or the promotion comes with it.”
    More oftenIn a lot of companies these run on separate tracks, with their own timing and their own decision makers. A rating says how the year went at your current level. Pay and level tend to need their own conversation, started earlier than feels natural.One thing to try: Understand how pay is decided where you work →
  • You might think“A hard review means they've already made up their minds about me.”
    More oftenMore often it is a description of what to change, and the comments in it rarely weigh the same. One or two tend to matter and the rest fill out the form. Now and then a hard review is an early warning, and guessing won't tell you which kind you have. Asking your manager which point they would most want to see change usually will.One thing to try: Ask how much each piece of feedback matters →

Things to do when review season is still months away

“I think it's going fine. I'd rather not find out otherwise in a meeting.”

These are small and a little dull, which is why they tend to get skipped. Each one swaps a guess for something you actually heard or wrote down.

Things to do when the self-review is due

“The form is open and I can't remember what I did before last month.”

A blank box and a deadline. Other people's words about your work are easier to gather than your own, so that's where this starts, and it ends with what you'd like to say and ask in the room.

  1. Step 1: Ask peers what your work changed for themTwo or three short replies that can anchor your whole self-review15 minutes
  2. Step 2: Get your work recognized: write a brag documentYour manager can't advocate for work nobody remembers · Essay by Julia Evans12 minutes
  3. Step 3: Write your self-review from evidenceReport the year you had, not the one your mood remembersAbout 45 minutes
  4. Step 4: Prepare for your review conversationWalk in knowing what you'll say, and leave with the answers you came for20 minutes

Dealing with something else at work?

Things to do after a review that stung

“I keep rereading one sentence and drafting replies in my head.”

Nothing here needs doing tonight. The first is a slower walk through the whole week. The rest help you find what's true in it, learn which comment carries the weight, and decide what, if anything, to say back.

Things to do when you know you're behind

“I'm hoping nobody has noticed yet. I suspect somebody has.”

Trouble that's said out loud is usually easier to work on than trouble that's guessed at. These are for saying it first, telling worry apart from fact, and, if it has become formal, knowing what the document in front of you is asking for.

Things to do when you're the one writing about someone else

“I've been asked for feedback on a colleague and I don't want to waste it, or hurt them.”

At some point you're on the other side of the form, as a peer or as someone's manager. What you write is useful to the degree that it's specific, and kind to the degree that none of it arrives as a surprise.

What your performance review depends on

  • Company size

    Large companies tend to have cycles, forms and rating scales. Small ones may have a chat over coffee, or nothing at all, which is less paperwork and also fewer moments where someone has to tell you where you stand.

  • How ratings are set

    Some places let each manager rate their own people. Others compare everyone in a room and limit how many can get the top marks. Under the second kind, your rating depends partly on who else had a good year.

  • Your manager

    Some keep notes all year and argue well for their people. Some write every review the night before. The same work can come out sounding quite different, which is one reason your own record matters.

  • The kind of work you do

    Work that ends in a number or a launch more or less reviews itself. Work that prevents problems, supports other people or pays off slowly has to be described by somebody, and that somebody is often you.

  • Remote or in person

    In an office, a fair amount gets noticed without anyone trying. Working apart, your manager knows mostly what was written down or said on a call, so short regular updates carry more of the load.

How performance reviews change through your career

  1. Starting out

    You may not know what the bar is, and people often forget to say. Early reviews tend to be about whether you're dependable and how quickly you pick things up. Asking how you're doing well before the first one is normal, and usually welcome.

  2. A few years in

    The work itself is rarely in question now. Reviews start to carry a second message about scope: whether you're doing your job well, or already working like the level above. Those are different things, and it helps to know which one yours is saying.

  3. Senior

    More of what you do happens through other people and over longer stretches, so it's harder to see and harder to count. You end up narrating your own work more than you used to. You're probably also writing reviews, which changes how you read your own.

  4. Later on

    The rating may matter less to you than it once did, and you may be in the room where other people's are decided. The quieter risk is that fewer people tell you anything straight, so honest reads on your work have to be asked for.

Performance review terms worth knowing

Review cycle
The stretch of time a review covers, and the season when the forms go round. Often once or twice a year.
Self-review
Your own written account of the period. Usually due before your manager writes theirs.
Calibration
A meeting where managers compare the ratings they plan to give, so one team isn't judged more gently than another. Ratings can move there.
Forced distribution
A rule or strong habit that only so many people can get each rating. Also called a curve, or stack ranking when people are put in order.
Meets expectations
The middle rating on most scales. In many companies it means you did the job well, though it rarely feels that way to read.
Peer feedback
Comments on your work from colleagues, gathered for your manager. When it also comes from people who report to you, it's often called a three-sixty.
Performance improvement plan
A formal document saying your work isn't where it needs to be, with specific goals and a deadline. Usually shortened to PIP. What it leads to varies a good deal by company.

When you have more time

Questions people ask about performance reviews

My manager changed partway through the year. Who writes my review?

It varies. Often the new manager writes it with notes from the old one, and those notes can be thin. It's fair to ask how it will work, and to offer a short summary of the months they weren't there for.

Get to know your new manager →

Can I push back on a rating I think is wrong?

You can usually say so, and a calm, specific question tends to read as taking it seriously. The rating itself seldom changes once it has gone through. What can change is what your manager understands and what sits on the record, so ask what they saw that led to it, and add your own account in writing if the form allows.

Recap a conversation in writing →

We don't have formal reviews. Am I missing something?

You're spared the paperwork, and you also lose the one moment when someone is obliged to tell you how it's going. You can make your own: ask your manager directly once or twice a year, and look back over the year for your own reasons.

Do a yearly career review →

A lot of what I do is helping other people and holding things together. How does that show up?

Often it doesn't, unless someone names it. That kind of work tends to be valued by everyone and written down by no one. Describing it in terms of what it made possible, in your updates and your self-review, gives your manager something they can repeat.

Make your glue work visible →

I had a rough year for reasons outside work. Should I say so?

That's yours to decide, and you don't owe anyone the details. A short heads-up at the time tends to land better than an explanation afterwards. If the time has passed, one plain sentence in the conversation can still change how a thin stretch gets read.

Give a heads-up when life gets in the way →

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