Six Tips for Acing Your Year-End Review
With all the distractions the end of the year brings, it's easy to
neglect your day-to-day work. But this might be the most important time of year
to focus on your job and your career. Many organizations hold year-end
performance reviews, and acing them is often your ticket to a pay raise or
promotion.
Here's how to prepare for a performance review so that you can
garner glowing results:
- Be prepared. Conduct a self-review before you meet with
your manager. Be honest with yourself -- evaluate how well you managed
your objectives, summarize what you accomplished and give yourself an
overall rating. Be sure to include detailed information. Did you save the
company time and/or money on a certain project? Determine the numbers. It
also helps to create a detailed list of everything you've accomplished
since your last review. It's good to have concrete information you can
point to when you're meeting with your boss.
- Be sure to share one or two stories that illustrate how
you've gone above and beyond the call of duty. This is the time to remind
your bosses of the kinds of additional contributions you make and your
dedication to the organization.
- Study your weaknesses. Identify what you can do better,
and have a plan prepared illustrating how. Create goals for the upcoming
year and formulate a plan for how you will achieve them.
- During your review meeting, take notes. It will be
useful for you to have them so that you can follow up properly during your
next review. Do not lose your composure during the review process, no
matter how difficult it might be to accept criticism. Ask questions of
your evaluator to illustrate that you understand his or her concerns.
- Keep the conversation focused on yourself,
advises Erisa Ojimba
at Salary.com. It may be tempting to talk about your colleagues, but don't
succumb. Straying to discuss others may reflect poorly on your own
performance.
- By the end of your review, try to reach some kind of
consensus about your overall performance. If you can't agree with your
supervisor's assessment, ask for more time so that you may find
information to back your claims, says Ojimba
Article From CareerJournal Online – December 2006