Preparing for Your Next Performance Review with Confidence

Oh no… it’s happening… *cue Jaws theme song *

The dreaded performance review… The day is fast approaching when you will be evaluated, and hopefully not found wanting. Most folks spend all year with their heads down, working hard and just pushing through. Then when it comes time for their reviews, they scramble to piece together an evaluation of their own performance. This is often a time of stress, anxiety, self-doubt, and frustration for many employees. But, it doesn’t need to be that way! Yes, you do need to prepare for your performance reviews, and we’ll go into three key strategies to make that preparation much more manageable and hopefully, way less painful and stressful. Using these strategies will help you organize the information for each milestone you have achieved and turn it into a concise and presentable form to display, and ultimately help you take ownership and control over how you present your performance.

3 strategies to effectively prepare for your performance review

1. Journal your accomplishments – all year long!

Picture this: your self-evaluation for your review is coming up due. There’s a question about your achievements and what you’re proud of this past year. You find yourself staring at the screen, wracking your brain, thinking to yourself, “What did I even do this year?! Did I have any real accomplishments?” Perhaps eventually you piece together one or two projects you could point to as evidence of your “good work,” but maybe your answer still feels lacking.

I hear this all the time from clients. We are not computers – we don’t automatically save all our achievements neatly into a mental folder to pull out later. That’s why I always recommend my clients write it down!

Yes, one of the best strategies to ace your performance review is by journaling your wins/accomplishments/strengths/etc. as soon as they happen – that might mean daily (highly recommended), weekly, or monthly. When you write your achievements, no matter how small they are, you automatically prepare yourself for showcasing your best. Another big plus – it creates momentum for attracting more successes towards you and it makes you work even smarter to make them happen. Tracking your wins regularly not only gives you ample content to pull from for your reviews, it also helps build confidence. It might even give you the ammunition you need to finally negotiate that raise!

2. Make a SWOT analysis

Let’s go back to our scenario: you looking over the self-evaluation questions.

Carefully perform self-evaluation to know your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats because this is going to boost your confidence while presenting yourself.

• Strengths: When you are aware of your strengths – those qualities or activities that come most naturally to you and where you can shine – you can better highlight them in your performance review. This can also fuel a discussion with your manager about what roles or activities you can take on to highlight those strengths while continuing your development.
• Weaknesses: Make yourself aware of your weaknesses – these can be qualities or activities that you lack, and/or areas you actively want to grow and develop. It will allow you to prepare yourself for responding to the questions asked about your weak areas. In this way, you can exhibit them as your improvement goals.
• Opportunities: Identify a few things that spark your interest, including projects coming up in the pipeline, skills you’d like to develop (for example, taking on a new direct report or managing an intern for the summer to learn and demonstrate managerial skills), or shifts to the scope of your role that you’ve been thinking about. Knowing your opportunities will help you make better decisions for what new chances you can take that match your aspirations, in your organizational structure.
• Threats: Ask yourself: What might get in the way of my success this year? By analyzing your threats, challenges, and roadblocks, you can readily express them when asked and use your review conversations to prepare workarounds with your managerial team.

3. Learn how to handle tough questions and feedback

There may be a point in the review – possibly during conversations with your manager or leadership – where some tricky questions come up. These might be questions that push back on what you’ve written, questions challenging you on your development goals, or questions that push you to take even more credit for your work! As you work through your self-evaluation and prepare for your review, try to think of how your manager (or your peers if there is a 360 component) might view your performance and what questions might come up from them. Taking some of those alternative perspectives in advance can help you prepare thoughtful responses so you don’t freeze or react poorly in the moment.

Speaking of reacting poorly… how do you react to feedback? Feedback – both positive and constructive – is almost always a key component of the review cycle, and I can make the case for it being an integral part of regular one-to-ones with your manager throughout the year. Still, it can be hard to hear negative things about our performance, especially when we’re trying so hard. The first thing I recommend to my clients to do in feedback situations is to take a deep breath, and then, to listen. What is actually being said? Is it as big a deal as the alarms going off in your head might suggest? (Hint: probably not.) One thing to remember is that feedback is not (or at least, should not) be personal – it’s what your manager (or peer or direct report) think you can work on. When you feel constructive criticism is coming, take that deep breath and listen – receive it with a positive approach and you might very well identify a great new development goal!

Final thoughts

Performance reviews don’t have to be scary and stressful and frustrating. Thoughtfully and diligently preparing for your performance review can help prevent anxiety from getting in the way of presenting yourself as best as you can. It’s never too late to start keeping track of your accomplishments in writing and recognizing your strengths (and weaknesses – yes, we all have those, too). Take stock of what opportunities you would like to grab in the future, and what are your goals and challenges. Plan your conversation carefully and ponder over the areas that can be questioned so that you can demonstrate your best self. And remember, you are allowed – and I would encourage you to – ask meaningful questions in conversations with your managers and leaders, and take notes of answers. The review is not just an opportunity to share what you’ve done, but also a chance to express how this job has helped you grow professionally and how you can add value to the organizational progress.

Are you freaking out about an upcoming performance review? Or are you looking for support and accountability to help unleash your confidence in your performance year-round? Schedule a discovery session to see if coaching with Revel&Awe is the right fit for you.

Note: This article was originally published on our blog on July 7, 2021.