The cheap cynicism here is not just sad, it's also bad for your career. At worst, self-reviews take up an hour of your time per year -- at a full time job, tha

The cheap cynicism here is not just sad, it's also bad for your career. At worst, self-reviews take up an hour of your time per year -- at a full time job, that is about 1/2 of a percent of the total hours you work in a year. You spend more time on a lot of other stuff that is more annoying and less beneficial to yourself. Do you want to get promoted? Do you want to make more money? Do you at least want to avoid getting laid off? If so, it is your job to demonstrate that you deserve those things. In many cases, the people who make the decisions do not know who you are and will only ever see your self review, peer reviews, and your manager's review of you. Even small companies often have this problem. This is not hard. List your achievements and good personal qualities in a way that highlights their value to the business. Your manager can't fight for you to get a raise or a promotion if you don't provide any ammo. So you should care about your performance review and put some effort into it. Don't have a manager like that? Leave, and find one. At companies with annual reviews you will almost always get annual raises and/or promotions. At companies without reviews, you often won't. Much like an "unlimited vacation time" policy, a policy of going without reviews is often actually worse than having a defined process.