3 Ways to Prepare for a Performance Review Year Round

What strategies have helped you feel more confident and prepared for a performance review? Share your tips and experiences in the comments below!

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Performance reviews can be stressful, but if you're well prepared, they can be a little less daunting (and maybe even enjoyable!). When you bring an assessment of your work and objectives to the table, you can worry less about what’s going to happen and look forward to having a more focused and rewarding conversation.

Rather than waiting until the last minute to reflect on your performance from the past year, we recommend you start conducting regular reviews of your work throughout the year.

Not sure how to do that consistently? Don’t worry—we’re sharing three steps to prepare for your next performance review, whether it’s taking place next week or next year.

Each quarter, check in on your goals

Hopefully you and your manager are regularly discussing your annual goals and long term career growth at your current organization. If not, it might be a good idea to consider what you want to achieve in your role and share them with your boss at your next check-in.

If you’re a recent hire, make sure to set a variety of initial short-term objectives and chart the progress over your first 100 days on the job.

To create these personal benchmarks, consider the SMART technique for goal-setting, which helps you transform a broad goal into a series of specific steps you can achieve more easily. Here’s an example of what SMART goal setting may look like:

General goal: Develop my leadership skills.

SMART goal: Enroll in a leadership or management training course and complete the course within six weeks.

Action plan:

• Enroll in an online leadership course by the next quarter.
• Complete one lecture each week (for six weeks).
• Do supplemental reading and exercises twice weekly.
• By the end of course, create my own personal leadership plan to better lead and manage my direct reports.

After you’ve set your SMART goals, keep them accessible in your career journal, planner, or other project management tool in order to regularly track progress; it’s important to reflect on and redefine your goals along the way, especially if things aren’t working. At the end of each quarter, review your  goal-specific actions and objectives to note where you’ve been successful and where you haven’t. If you’ve missed some deadlines or have failed to gain traction on a goal, dig further by asking yourself:

• What is not going well and why?
• What is most difficult about staying on track with a particular goal?
• How can I remove or mitigate those obstacles?
• Can I break down a goal into even smaller parts for more success?

As you note what’s working, and what’s not, be sure to track the progress you’ve made and how it has contributed to the success of your role or the organization at large.

Evaluate your working relationships

Along with taking stock of how well you’re maintaining your career goals, it’s valuable to consider how your workplace relationships are faring as well. Consider the following:

• Is there open and clear communication with your team—including constructive criticism and feedback?
• Do you feel compatible with your colleagues in terms of personality and work styles?
• Are you comfortable with the way conflict resolution is handled?
• When do you feel most supported in your role?
• In what ways do you feel positively challenged by your coworkers, supervisor, or job demands?

Writing down your struggles may allow you to better formulate what you need to improve your situation. Being proactive on this front can help you adjust behaviors that your manager may want to discuss during your annual performance review, so consider it carefully!

Define what you want to accomplish after the performance review

If you are hitting your goals out of the park, you should feel proud. But equally as important as enumerating your accomplishments is talking through what you want to do next, especially when preparing for a performance review.

Whenever you accomplish something—knocking a project out of the park, spearheading a donation campaign, planning a successful event—consider how it will help you grow. For example, if you saw an increase in donations after you wrote every email for your organization’s recent marketing campaign, you may want to take on more of a leadership role to ideate the next campaign.

Even if you’re unsure about the specifics, regularly checking in and working to articulate what you want can help you lay a strong foundation for a clearer and more concise path to your professional goals. That way, when it's time for your performance review, you have a whole year of notes, measurable wins, and goals to share with your manager for the next year.