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Ask HN: How was your first performance review?

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41–43 of 43 posts

Re: Ask HN: How was your first performance review?

#41

It was a complete and utter waste of time, as has been every other performance review I have ever been a part of. Performance reviews from bosses are almost always useless and do more harm than good. The only possible exception I've seen might be in research settings where supervisors sometimes work closely with you and may actually be qualified to evaluate your work. But in that case, usually they are already giving…

They are good for one thing: If your manager says anything other than "Keep up the good work!", you know that (a) they don't like you, and (b) they're working on getting rid of you.

Extremely valuable information if you know what to do with it.

Re: Ask HN: How was your first performance review?

#42

It was a complete and utter waste of time, as has been every other performance review I have ever been a part of. Performance reviews from bosses are almost always useless and do more harm than good. The only possible exception I've seen might be in research settings where supervisors sometimes work closely with you and may actually be qualified to evaluate your work. But in that case, usually they are already giving…

”But in that case, usually they are already giving you feedback during the process and a formal performance review is just a checkbox item to satisfy their own supervisor or funding organization”

If this is ever not true of your manager at any company in any industry, then the manager sucks and you should leave (if you have the means). If the manager wants to do this but the company doesn’t let them, then the CEO suck and you should leave.

Re: Ask HN: How was your first performance review?

#43
They didn't inform me that it was a performance review. I did not notice that it was a performance review. It wasn't made clear what or weather i was doing well or should change behavior. I didn't interpret the meeting as intended to have any effect on my employment. It was months later, after I had started hearing friends talk about their performance reviews, that I realized that I had one as well.
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