How to Ace Your Performance Review: 6 Tips

6 Tips to Ace Your Performance Review

Nobody LOVES performance reviews. As a manager, I don’t love giving them and as an employee, I don’t love receiving them. Following are my 6 tips to make the experience as valuable as possible with the least amount of pain!

Show up prepared
Think about your performance over the past year, what you’ve done well, perhaps not so well, ways you’ve demonstrated personal growth. Reviews are stressful and unless you’ve thought it through, it would be easy to draw a blanks when it comes time to tout your strengths. Equally important, have an honest conversation with yourself about areas you may need to improve. Chances are, if you know you need to improve on your organizational skills, your boss knows that too, and it could likely come up.

Stay Calm, stay professional and listen intently:
Show up with a pen and pad of paper, prepared to take notes and engage in a two way conversation. Sit up straight, make strong eye contact and don’t sit in a defensive posture with your arms crossed. Just remember, 80% of your message is expressed through your body language and tone of voice...it’s sometimes literally more important than the actual words coming out of your mouth.

Own your shortcomings:
If something negative comes up, it’s ok to express surprise or concern but not ok to respond defensively. You need to listen and ask for clarification. Ask for examples and ask for your boss’s recommendations for improvement. If you’ve prepared yourself, this gives you the opportunity to respond without feeling defensive or overly emotional. Responding with something like, “I’ve been thinking about how I can improve on my organization and here are the things I’m going to do over the next year to improve.”

Use the opportunity to express your career goals
This also requires some planning...what would you like to be doing in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years. And don’t be afraid to aim high.

Establish a plan for the upcoming year
Make sure you and your boss are crystal clear on what success looks like to avoid any unpleasant surprises in next year’s performance review.

Use the “additional comments” to your advantage.
Most performance reviews allow for feedback such as “how can your manager help you reach your goals” or simply a space to write your own comments. Keep in mind, this is going in your file maintained by HR so it’s important to get things down on the record. It’s important that you clarify your perspective especially if you received a disappointing review. However, this is not an opportunity to tell the world everything you hate about your boss, coworkers or the company. Keep all comments professional and positive. If you’ve been caught off guard, during your review, ask if you can take some time to mull it over so you can think through a well thought out response.

[Sean-kgvh]

Boss: "You're fired"
Me: "okay. Ill think about that" *big smile*

[TrishaPalmieri]

Thank you for sharing how to be prepared for the performance review. What you did well and areas of improvement. Great way to set the conversation up for successes.

[jay]

I think the cat to the far-right has the right attitude.
Seriously, thank you very much. I feel much more prepared.

[Coratime]

I enjoyed your energy in this video. More smiles and uplifting voice tone. Thanks.

[creator]

Some great tips. Thank you. It makes me feel more prepared and less anxiety about it.

[Knowledge_Jara_Hatke]

Thanku so much Dear Madam...for your Valuable Tips...
Really it will help thousands of New Employee or Probationary period employee.

[lmartinyale]

Performance review prep is a morale booster and time waster but thanks for the tips

[hameedm]

It's better to decrease the back ground music volume which irritates to listen important information from u

[RealityRenovations]

Interesting... I look forward to my performance reviews.

[theliftexpert]

The artificial eye implants are difficult to look 👀 at, but the information presented was excellent.

[nathankarthikeyan]

Really some good tips. Thanks for sharing them.

[xozeintk]

Looks like i have a meeting tomorrow. That's why i am searching a video like this😍

[wenblue]

I don't get anything out of it. I'm performing, there isn't any room for professional growth so why waste my time or the business' time. It feels insincere, to sit there to tick a box.

[johnwicks]

BS there’s always room for improvement. There’s always room to improve/perfect a process.