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I'm going to go against the grain here. Yes, I believe self-reviews are stupid. Frankly they indeed serve as a cheat-sheet for your manager, which is a sign tha

by fleddr 4y ago

I'm going to go against the grain here. Yes, I believe self-reviews are stupid. Frankly they indeed serve as a cheat-sheet for your manager, which is a sign that they are so disengaged that they don't even know what you're doing. Don't fight the game though, play it to win. Throughout the year, I keep a single note open "Accomplishments 2022". I simply add my accomplishments to it, typically as a weekly summary. Plus anything notable, process improvements, innovations, overtime, compliments from peers, the like. All of this adds up into a war chest. During the actual performance review meeting I come armed to the teeth. This is how you flip the script. I don't need to explain that I deserve a great review, my manager needs to explain the opposite in the face of a mountain of evidence. The individual accomplishments don't even have to be earth shattering, just document them consistently. The total amount of them will be so overwhelming that nobody is going to bother taking them apart. Learn to write corporate speak: "Improved automated test coverage by 40% to support our do more with less corporate goal, freeing up resources to work on value-adding services". Whilst this was just me editing a file for 20 minutes. You want red tape? I'll bury you in it. Mix it with psychology. Act modest and humble despite the boat load of evidence of good performance. As if it "was the least you could do", radiating supreme loyalty. A minority of eager managers might still throw in a point of critique, feeling they need to do their job in providing some balance to this review. As the critique hit, look down and pause for a few seconds, make it awkwardly long as if the air is sucked out of the room. In this period, the manager is going to feel awful, thinking they just deeply hurt a great worker. Then, respond with "I hadn't though of that. That's very insightful and something I surely will integrate into my work to do EVEN better, going forward". The word "even" is important here, as well as "going forward". Managers love going forward. The manager is now relieved that the air is cleared, plus feels very smart. Be sure to already open a new note "accomplishments 2023" and at the top, in bold and red write the critique. Then, in next year's review start the session with "Really loved the suggestion made last year and here's how...blah blah". It wasn't even a serious remark, they just wanted to say something. They forgot all about it. But here you are fully remembering it and acting upon it, which is somebody nobody does. And this is how you corner your manager.

lowercased 4y ago
I was at one place where I kept a public blog about day to day stuff. I mean 'public' in the sense that it was internal, but I shared it with the team. Meeting notes, any issues I hit, resolutions, etc. It wasn't necessarily something I posted to every single day, but at least weekly. Ended up being around 2-3x/week. Notes on why certain decisions were made, other options tried, etc. I had originally put some of this in comments, but was working some place where "comments in code are bad - remove them all - should be self-documenting" so... I needed to put them someplace. I was lightly teased for keeping this log. Then I quit, and a couple folks told me they were still looking up things in my blog months after I left, as they couldn't tell why certain things were done. "Couldn't use X because person Y indicated we weren't paying for X, so I had to build a smaller Z version instead" - that type of thing. It 'helped' some because we got a new dept manager in, say, June, and July was the time for all the 'end of fiscal year' review stuff. Dept manager had to do 10-12 staff reviews in... 3 weeks? He had no ability to contextualize most of anything, but I had a running history of months of issues, resolutions, meeting notes, conversations, and more. I will say that was... over a decade ago, and I don't think I've been that diligent since. It was useful, but definitely more work than I would feel comfortable committing to again, at least with current workloads. The workload there was surprisingly... light enough such that I could keep docs as a regular part of week to week work.
gofreddygo 4y ago
For sure maintain a "Accomplishments 20XX" file. I also have a section in that file for buzzwords from team meetings, town halls and broader presentations. I fill reviews with 3 things - "I did ___ and ___ and ___" - "Last year I said I would do ___. This is what I did for it ___" - "Next, year I plan to ___" accomplishments are microscopic, aligned to broader team/company goals. future plans are high level, things I can contribute to but not own like "Improve documentation culture" , "Increase user engagement for ___" never actually committing to any deniable numbers cz priorities change, that document from last year does not. Last, remember this stuff may seem strange but the next hiring manager in your org will read it. They will instantly see your soft skill to blow your own trumpet.

by fleddr 4y ago

lowercased 4y ago

I was at one place where I kept a public blog about day to day stuff. I mean 'public' in the sense that it was internal, but I shared it with the team. Meeting notes, any issues I hit, resolutions, etc. It wasn't necessarily something I posted to every single day, but at least weekly. Ended up being around 2-3x/week. Notes on why certain decisions were made, other options tried, etc. I had originally put some of this in comments, but was working some place where "comments in code are bad - remove them all - should be self-documenting" so... I needed to put them someplace. I was lightly teased for keeping this log. Then I quit, and a couple folks told me they were still looking up things in my blog months after I left, as they couldn't tell why certain things were done. "Couldn't use X because person Y indicated we weren't paying for X, so I had to build a smaller Z version instead" - that type of thing. It 'helped' some because we got a new dept manager in, say, June, and July was the time for all the 'end of fiscal year' review stuff. Dept manager had to do 10-12 staff reviews in... 3 weeks? He had no ability to contextualize most of anything, but I had a running history of months of issues, resolutions, meeting notes, conversations, and more. I will say that was... over a decade ago, and I don't think I've been that diligent since. It was useful, but definitely more work than I would feel comfortable committing to again, at least with current workloads. The workload there was surprisingly... light enough such that I could keep docs as a regular part of week to week work.

gofreddygo 4y ago

For sure maintain a "Accomplishments 20XX" file. I also have a section in that file for buzzwords from team meetings, town halls and broader presentations. I fill reviews with 3 things - "I did ___ and ___ and ___" - "Last year I said I would do ___. This is what I did for it ___" - "Next, year I plan to ___" accomplishments are microscopic, aligned to broader team/company goals. future plans are high level, things I can contribute to but not own like "Improve documentation culture" , "Increase user engagement for ___" never actually committing to any deniable numbers cz priorities change, that document from last year does not. Last, remember this stuff may seem strange but the next hiring manager in your org will read it. They will instantly see your soft skill to blow your own trumpet.