Name: Making The BEST Case For Yourself In Performance Review: The Self Review
Uploaded: 2022-07-31T23:35:19+00:00
Duration: 6 min 9 s
Description: Your self-review is the most important feedback for you come performance review season: Ignore the weirdness you may fee

Making The BEST Case For Yourself In Performance Review: The Self Review

- Your self-review is the most important feedback for you come performance review season: Ignore the weirdness you may feel hyping yourself up and take it very seriously.
- The onus for representing yourself well falls mainly on you, not your manager or peers. Nobody knows you better than you. It's your job to make sure that none of your awesome achievements fall through the cracks.
- Start your self-review early and refine it across several iterations with your manager.
- Use [your brag journal](https://www.jointaro.com/course/nail-your-promotion-as-a-software-engineer/brag-journal/) to seed the self-review.
- Show the impact. Attach links to proof as much as you can (e.g. linking a dashboard with positive metrics to show that the project you launched added business value).

Related resources:

- ["How can I most effectively talk about my projects?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/c0CDYi5VCRXz0gHHLiGP/how-can-i-most-effectively-talk-about-my-projects/)
- ["How to figure out what the most important projects are?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/CgCPA60bDDHoOteN7Lmb/how-to-figure-out-what-the-most-important-projects-are/)

Your self-review is the most important feedback for you come performance review season: Ignore the weirdness you may fee

[Masterclass] How To Navigate Your Performance Review In Tech

The slides provide a great high-level overview of the entire session for your notes, so here's our Top 5 thoughts that aren't entirely in the slides:

- Not deeply understanding your company's performance review cycle is job suicide, especially in the current age of layoffs and stack-rank (the latter being perennial).
- If you're truly working at a top company, you shouldn't be promoted to the next level unless you have been functioning there for at least 3-6 months. Companies that don't do this tend to promote due to raw experience and have many incompetent people at senior+ levels.
- Always have a plan for your performance review, even if your goal is just to be average and survive. Work with your manager at the beginning of every cycle to create a clear and living expectations document.
- Be very deliberate about the peers you want leaving feedback for you on your performance review. Assemble that cast at the beginning of the cycle and start building those deep 1 on 1 relationships once you have done that.
- When you are asked to leave constructive feedback for a peer, flip the question from *"What did they do poorly?"* to *"How can they expand their scope?"*. This will become easier as you reach an L5 (senior) level and more deeply understand what each engineering level means.

Related resources:

- [\[Masterclass\] What Software Engineers Should Look For In Their Engineering Manager](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/oeY7ncZhzJ5NO6dij5e7/masterclass-what-software-engineers-should-look-for-in-their-engineering-manager/)
- [\[Masterclass\] How To Get Promoted Faster In Tech](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/W730BOdrfAIXAEVd8HUf/masterclass-how-to-get-promoted-faster-in-tech/)
- [\[Masterclass\] How To Have Impactful 1:1 Meetings](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/FEK6JZqW2Jg3rdN9yeGn/masterclass-how-to-have-impactful-1-on-1-meetings/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/142PsWRJ-fmdP42CrFpR0VD64L1qFP-6nPTmjk5g1DKM/edit?usp=sharing)