Preparing for Your Annual Review Meeting

It’s time for your annual meeting to discuss your performance with your supervisor or evaluator. While these meetings may be required by your employer, you still want to be prepared to go into them focused on how you can get the most out of the conversation. As you contemplate what you might do to make this year’s meeting more meaningful and productive for you, the following steps can help:

Review your record of work before the meeting

It’s not always easy to remember all of the projects and matters that constitute your work during the last year or whatever time frame is encompassed by your evaluation. But you don’t want to go to your review meeting without a strong knowledge of the specific milestones and goals that you know you have met during the review period. That makes it important to take the time in advance of your review meeting to go over that work, and also make note of your accomplishments. You want to ensure that you have all the facts at hand about your work in case you need to respond to a specific statement or question in the meeting.

Look also at how your work reflects any feedback you received at your last evaluation, and how it tracks again your professional development goals. If you’ve submitted a self-evaluation in advance of your review, look back to that document to reacquaint yourself with what is reflected there about your work. Bringing with you to the review meeting a copy of your self-evaluation and your notes about your work can also assist if you need to look back at something specific that your evaluator references in the meeting.

Be ready to address the specifics of key issues which may come up in the meeting

Consider carefully what areas may be strengths or weaknesses for you, and how you will want to address them. For example, if your billable hours at your law firm have decreased, be prepared to speak to the reasons why that is the case and what you are doing to address the matter. Find a way to identify also to identify how you are recovering from a setback, such as by acknowledging the downturn in the past year but pointing out that you were recently engaged for a new matter which will generate substantial fees in the coming year. Also, demonstrate ways that you are working to overcome obstacles that you’ve encountered. This may also be an opportunity to explain how you are adapting to address areas of concern.

Do not assume that a significant issue you are worried about will not come up or that you can avoid it in your review meeting. It is best to acknowledge the concern, and address it proactively both in your self-evaluation and in the review meeting with your evaluator. For instance, if your team has had difficulty meeting deadlines in the past year, and you know this has impacted certain deliverables, you need to be ready to outline to the evaluator what you understand went wrong and how you intend to correct the issues going forward.

Determine what questions you want to ask your evaluator

Your review meeting is not just a time for the evaluator to talk to you but also an opportunity for you to ask questions and get clarification if necessary. If in the meeting you hear comments that are unclear, or seem inconsistent with your record of work and accomplishments, ask the evaluator if they can explain further. Or if you don’t understand the next steps following the review meeting, inquire what they are. It doesn’t feel good to walk away from the review feeling that you aren’t sure what the review means in terms of where you stand with your employer. So, take the time during your meeting to ask the questions that are important to you.

You might want to ask what your evaluation means in terms of your salary or bonus expectations. Alternatively, you may be thinking about whether there are additional steps you need to take to recover from a tough year.  A few examples of questions that may be worth exploring in your review:

• What should I focus on doing in the next year to reach my goals?

• What is the company’s expectation for me in the next year?

• Is there a path to promotion for me, and what is the timeline for that?

• What do you recommend I do to move forward from this year’s challenges?.

Be open to feedback

Too many professionals fear the annual review meeting or approach it with trepidation. They assume it will expose them to unfounded criticism that has no real relevance to how they do their jobs. But preparing for your review meeting with a different mindset can better position you to learn from the meeting, even if you don’t agree with everything the evaluator says.

Go into the meeting willing to listen to the feedback you receive. You might consider whether you want to respond to the feedback at the meeting, or if you instead want to take some time to think about it afterwards and seek a follow-up meeting to discuss more. Often, evaluators are not only amenable to further discussions, but encourage them as a way of continuing the dialogue about work performance and goals. Pausing after the meeting to reflect on what you heard is also a way to digest the evaluation. You can also assess whether some comments, while difficult to hear, may be ones that give you information that is helpful to your thinking about next steps in your work.

If I can be of assistance to you during your evaluation review process, or other professional work life issues, please reach out to me at laura@lauraterrell.com to discuss how coaching with me may be helpful.