The true purpose of performance reviews

- Okay, let's talk about the true purpose of performance reviews because too many professionals get this all wrong. If you are waiting to bring up your promotion or salary conversation for the first time in a performance review, it's already too late. Firstly, because these types of reviews normally happen only once or twice a year. And secondly, you're missing out on critical weeks and months in between these performance reviews where you can actually put steps into action that will help you reach those goals faster. So ideally, you want to position your performance reviews as a natural extension of your career path dialogues regarding your advancement and use that as an alignment opportunity on where you're at and how you get into that next step faster. Pro tip! Come ready to these performance reviews with a solid grasp of your own track record and the evolution that you've had in your role since the last time you've discussed your own career progression. Show your boss how much you've grown in this short evolution of time, which will be served as an anchor towards your next promotion or role in the company. And use this as an opportunity to show them that you've done your research and that you are very aware of what is required to step into that next promotion and how you've already been making intentional efforts to demonstrate those types of skills and competencies over these last weeks and months. This will also help improve the perception that you are in fact ready for that next step. Pro tip! If you are met with any surface level feedback from your boss in return, statements like keep up the good work, you're doing a great job, keep doing what you're doing, you definitely want to probe further. Your goal coming out of a performance review is to have a very clear action plan of what you need to do to get from your point A to point B faster if it's not already solidified in that performance review. You've got this!