Get evidence i.e. Being your own advocate

[Scougar]

This is not about "look at me, look how good I did!", this is some feedback on an approach I used prior to half yearly and yearly reviews that ended up in a very good result in a corporate position. (I.e. playing the game).

#1: Get email feedback on any tough projects you were involved with and from those people you worked closely/actively with. Even from other teams. (Don't be pushy about it though).

#2: Give email feedback to those people in advance. I sent positive feedback to six people from various teams for example.

They and I were then able to attach emails prior to review time as ONE source of evidence in those reviews.

This approach gained me 3 to 4 times my usual bonus and pay raise.

Obviously I worked hard during the year as well and did weekends at times, but BE YOUR OWN ADVOCATE.

Good luck. Remember your worth.

 

[HangTime]

This was baked into the standard review process where I used to work, you would nominate about half a dozen people to provide feedback on yourself from a range of different interactions (direct reports, peers, other teams, business/IT reps etc). You could then be asked to give feedback on others or pro-actively provide feedback on others without being asked. This could be directly fed into the HR system rather than needing to attach emails, although I usually gave that option when gathering feedback on my team for simplicity.

I guess what you are suggesting is to provide positive non-anonymous feedback to the people you are going to request feedback from in order to influence their likely feedback on yourself (subconscious back-scratching).

 

[Scougar]

This was baked into the standard review process where I used to work, you would nominate about half a dozen people to provide feedback on yourself from a range of different interactions (direct reports, peers, other teams, business/IT reps etc). You could then be asked to give feedback on others or pro-actively provide feedback on others without being asked. This could be directly fed into the HR system rather than needing to attach emails, although I usually gave that option when gathering feedback on my team for simplicity.

I guess what you are suggesting is to provide positive non-anonymous feedback to the people you are going to request feedback from in order to influence their likely feedback on yourself (subconscious back-scratching).

Something I had to learn since being over on this side of the pond is... the work itself is not enough. You need to be making connections through your work, and market yourself. Money talks, play the game. Corp doesn't care about you.

As for the back scratching, I only provided feedback to people that I thought did a good job in the first place. If there is 'negative' feedback, I give that to them personally.

Additionally, I took positive comments from IM's (where appropriate) as evidence. A technical director making reference that I would be a great candidate for 'X' position based on my work for example.

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Where does this come from? I had failed in the previous year to supply evidence, and my manager at the time was clearly being vindictive against the team for an extremely tough project that I am guessing they got some grief over. We worked our butts off, then got penalized for it at review time, even though we delivered. I vowed to never let that happen again, and this is the result.

 

[ivrytwr3]

I don't ask peers for feedback, but customers/clients etc............it is easy for them to say, "You've done a great job thanks", you feel good, but that comment doesn't go anywhere. I've taken to asking if they wouldn't mind putting that in an email, same when i get verbal feedback for my team, "thanks for that, appreciated, mind popping that in an email?"

9/10 you will get that email - much better coming from external of your team - also very useful evidence when writing their appraisals etc.

 

[mid_gen]

I think it really depends on the corporate culture, and the country. This is definitely the sort of thing you need to do if you want to advance above junior management positions in big American corporates (been there). As already mentioned, this feedback step is baked into the review process at many places (inc Microsoft).

That kind of naked self-promotion doesn't go down so well in British companies in my view, you'd quite possibly wind a lot of people up

 

[HangTime]

I don't ask peers for feedback, but customers/clients etc............it is easy for them to say, "You've done a great job thanks", you feel good, but that comment doesn't go anywhere. I've taken to asking if they wouldn't mind putting that in an email, same when i get verbal feedback for my team, "thanks for that, appreciated, mind popping that in an email?"

9/10 you will get that email - much better coming from external of your team - also very useful evidence when writing their appraisals etc.

It's the sort of thing I would find a bit cringey, being thanked by my team and then asking them to put it in an email, like I was treating them as a pawn in my efforts to climb the corporate ladder. Although I suppose those I had a close working relationship with would likely have been happy to because they knew me well enough that I valued them more than that.

 

[NotAGolf]

I've done this for a few years now. When something good or bad happens, I make a quick note of it in notepad or wherever, then when it comes to review time I can quickly skim through these notes to find examples if needed.

I also do this for the other people within the team in case I'm asked for feedback. This has been particularly useful when we hire someone who's clearly not up to the job and you can present a list of issues to support the case for getting rid of them.

I also extend these notes for when someone else makes a stupid decision, just to cover my back. If I get asked why the project went to ****, I can just fish out an email which showed the project manager telling me we would skip that bit.

I only offer up this information if asked for it though, and I don't have actively ask for for the feedback on myself either - I agree with others that would feel very cringe.