Preparing for Your Annual Performance Review as an Engineer

Anthony Fasano posted 2014-01-07

The following is a summary of Session 9 of my podcast, The Engineering Career Coach (TECC) Podcast with Anthony Fasano, PE. I will summarize the main points in this session here; however, you can also listen to the show through the player below or by subscribing on iTunes. I offer a career-changing tip at the end of each podcast session.

I have received an overwhelming number of requests from engineers this year about how to approach their annual performance reviews. The questions focused on how to prepare, when to prepare, how to ensure a raise or promotion, etc.

Even after my blog post about how not to mess up your annual review, the questions kept coming, and therefore I recorded this podcast to assist engineers with this topic.

Your annual performance review is a critical factor in how fast and far you advance your engineering career. As unfortunate as it may sound, even if you have a great year, if you can’t present that year powerfully to your supervisor, it may be overlooked to some degree.

In this session of The Engineering Career Coach Podcast, I will provide you with strategies for preparing for and capitalizing on your annual performance review. The following points will be stressed and covered in detail.

  • It is important that you prepare for your review at least one month in advance, ideally two or three months. This gives your employer enough time to review any material that you have prepared and factor it into their raise/promotion decisions.
  • The best way to prepare for a review is to reflect on your past year by brainstorming all of your accomplishments as well as lessons learned.
  • Go through an intensive goal-setting process so that you can walk into your annual review with clear goals for yourself and your team for the year ahead.
  • You must ask the right questions in your review to fully understand the expectations that your supervisor and the company as a whole have of you. If you are not clear on these, how can you make your company happy?
  • Being on the same page with your company as far as goals and expectations is key to success for all parties.

Whether you have an annual performance review coming up or just want to start thinking about your next one, this podcast should help you do either. It’s time to engineer your own success.

This is a guest post by Anthony Fasano, PE, author of Engineer Your Own Success. Anthony found success as an engineer at a very early age and now writes and podcasts to help other engineers do the same. Visit Anthony’s website atEngineeringCareerCoach.com and subscribe to the top 3 resources Anthony has used to become a partner in a firm at the age of 27.