Employee Reviews: Preparing Yourself

Remember back when you interviewed for this job? Didn’t you prepare for it as if you were selling yourself?

The employee review, assuming that you have them, is your invitation to remind them what they bought. A lot has happened since your interview, including subsequent interviews of other job candidates and people hired after you. No matter how close you think you are to your manager, they don’t remember all the things you do like you do.

Some firms have an evaluation form they want you to fill out and submit prior to the review. Commit to spending quality time with yourself so that you can do a thorough analysis of your performance. Whether these things come up during an employee review or not is not as important as you might think. Going into an employee review with humble confidence can be your greatest asset.

Begin by writing down what tasks you have done and for each one answer these three questions:
1. Who initiated this task? Did someone direct you to do it or is it something you thought up yourself. Both answers speak positively about you. The former being that you followed directions and the latter being that you took initiative.

2. Before you started doing this task, what was it like before? Have there been positive changes because you are the one doing the task instead of someone else? Was there a procedure for it already in place or did you have to create the process yourself? Or are you just plain old good at completing the assignment.

3. What are the results? Did it make other people’s jobs easier? Can they find things now that they couldn’t find before? Can your manager focus on their specialized tasks better because they trust you to take care of it? Even if you haven't thought of it that way before, certainly others are benefitting somehow even if it's just that it's one less thing for them to do.


Consider your review your chance to make a positive impression on the ones you are meeting with. Don't get too hung up on listing goals and figuring out your strengths and weaknesses. Just prepare well and have confidence in yourself!