Performance review time? It’s your chance to shine! Preparation is key when highlighting your achievements and communicating your goals during your performance review. Just like any meeting, it’s never a good idea to go in without any preparation, especially if you have a goal in mind. Keep your confidence up and reflect on your performance and progress this past year. Setting yourself up to ask the important questions can help you grow in your career.
Performance evaluations are a great opportunity to not only understand how you have performed during the past year but is also an opportunity to see where you can grow, cultivate strengths and focus on your goals in the future. Remember that this is an empowering meeting meant to set you up for success.
Tips to Help You Prepare for Performance Evaluations
Keep these helpful tips in mind to gear up for your upcoming performance review meeting.
1. Reflect on your progress
Performance evaluations are usually intended to talk about your progress and how you have been managing and achieving your goals. As you prepare for your meeting, reflect on how you’ve improved over the past year, how you’ve accomplished your goals, and what your relationships are like within your team. Ask your coworkers for their feedback and make note of the changes you’ve made to improve and manage your time and tasks more efficiently.
2. Highlight your accomplishments
You want to show your manager everything you have accomplished since the last performance review meeting. Show how your hard work has allowed you to reach your goals and, better yet, connect those goals and tasks towards contributing to the company’s overall success. Write down measurable successes and other decisions you’ve made that have made an impact on your team. You can even list or mention additional certifications or ongoing training you’ve been doing during this time.
3. Review goals and set new goals
Were you able to accomplish all the goals your manager set for you? What about your own goals? Talk about them. Are there any tasks or goals that you were unable to meet or had to push back? Talk about the challenges as well as what improvements you can make to manage your tasks better. Additionally, this is a good opportunity to set new goals. Whether you want to take on more responsibility, manage others, or want to learn more about different parts of the company, set up a plan to chalk out what the next phase of your career growth will be.
4. Prepare important questions
As you continue your career in your specific role, there might be important questions that come up regarding your progress, growth and where you would like to see yourself in the organization in the upcoming years. This meeting is when you should bring up these important questions, especially if it’s pertaining to switching departments, reporting to other people or wanting to try new projects. Again, remember to prepare these questions beforehand and think about how you want to talk about these points in an organized way.
5. Be open to feedback
As you receive good feedback positively, be prepared for any concerns and any areas of improvement that may come up as well. Your manager only wants to see you grow and succeed. Receive all feedback well and use those constructive comments as motivation to improve and continue doing better in your role. This feedback will be important for you to take note of so you can work on these issues over the next year.
Make sure to give yourself kudos for all the hard work you’ve put into the past year. You’re continuing to learn and grow. Always remember that mistakes are a way to learn so that you can grow and improve. Some review meetings might be harder than others, but take pride in your efforts and focus on improvement for the future.
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