Performance reviews are bullshit, but you must play the game to win.
Schedule Regular Reviews
You must have regular one-on-one discussion with your manager/boss about your performance. Ideally weekly or fortnightly at a minimum.
Directly ask how you are doing and what can be improved. Make your goals known to your manager/boss. For instance, if youâre trying to get promoted from an L3 engineer to an L4 engineer, make that obvious every conversation. You must be clear about your goals if theyâre promotion-related because a good review does not imply a promotion!
Maintain documentation for their response (an email or a Google Docs document, for example). People are subconsciously inclined to stay congruent with their past behaviours and statements, according to the Consistency Principle of Persuasion. If they communicate that youâre meeting the requirements for whatever goal, then documenting things will compel them to commit to what they said.
Document Everything
Document everything to a borderline autistic extent.
- Create daily logs and weekly reports of your high-level progress.
- Manage a growing knowledgebase.
- Note the books youâve read and other educational pursuits that show improvement.
- Save all the emails where you have received praise for you work.
Put up a fight if you havenât been promoted when you expected to be. If you document everything, youâll have a mountain of evidence to support your case that cannot be ignored.
Promotions & Raises
Prefer adopting more responsibility and âbiggerâ job titles than more money, because the money will naturally follow in the long term. You cannot attain a promotion by working hard quietly, you absolutely must be aggressive in pursuit of it. You donât get opportunities - you make them.
Again, make it absolutely clear to management that you want a promotion and intend to prove you meet the requirements for one.
An extremely powerful case for a promotion is if you can prove, with numbers, that you are worth more than you cost.
Avoid ultimatums: Although it sounds like the most powerful âcheckmateâ move to make in order to get what you want, donât give your boss an ultimatum where you demand a promotion/pay rise or leave the job by accepting a higher-paying offer. Youâll piss off people, but more importantly theyâll be motivated to find a replacement for you because youâll be seen to be more of a liability than an asset. Some companies have strict policies that compel managers to never negotiate.
Job hop: itâs a reliable way to get a âpromotionâ, just at another company. Doing it every 2-3 years seems to be the norm, and it forces you to constantly stay in demand.