Dice Career Advice Blog

Though several months away for most organizations it's never too early to start thinking about one of the most important rituals that takes place between a manger and employee: performance reviews. These are formal opportunities for career development where you and your manger have a dialogue about your accomplishments, contributions, and goals (both met and to be set) and get feedback along with some kind of performance score.

The most productive performance review discussions are those that summarize previous informal discussions about performance. The end of the year review allows consolidation of previous discussions in order to point out trends and patterns of performance. To truly achieve this overview, managers must discuss and keep track of progress throughout the performance period (e.g., the previous year). The employee needs to take inventory and ask themselves questions like; Have I considered what was accomplished and how it was accomplished? What was not accomplished and why? Were expectations clearly established and the employee's job clearly defined? What resources/help were needed? Was there ongoing feedback throughout the year? And was the desired accomplishment under the employee's control?

Preparation should also include meeting with a department head or other clients who work closely with the employee to get an overall assessment of performance and to discuss support needed. The manager and employee should identify an appropriate sample of internal clients/coworkers for feedback and the manager should solicit and collect the feedback before preparing the final yearly review.

Below are tips for both planning and executing successful performance reviews:

Planning performance interviews:

• If appropriate, gather data from some of the employee's internal clients with whom he/she works closely to assist in writing a comprehensive review
• Ask the employee to provide self-input well ahead of time
• Anticipate potentially difficult issues and be prepared with facts
• Include in the final written review a written summary of all performance related conversations held during the year
• Use concrete examples in the review to support your ratings
• Be certain the performance message matches performance ratings
• Link the review discussion points to prior expectations and feedback
• Schedule enough time for a two-way, interactive meeting and don't allow interruptions
• Hold the meeting in a comfortable place (preferably not across your desk)

Executing a Successful Meeting:

• Give the employee time to read the review before going into detail
• Ask open-ended questions to draw out the employee
• Listen carefully and give direct and respectful feedback
• Attempt to break conflict by finding areas of agreement such as customer and team needs, etc.
• Prepare a formal performance review-a written summary of all performance-related conversations held during the year. While this is a best practice, it sometimes will not be possible. Check with Human Resources if you have a situation like this to assure it is handled properly.
• Ask what you can do to better support the employee in the future
• Complete the meeting with specific follow-up actions, plans, and agreed-upon expectations

If you’ve never been on one, an exit interview is a non-obligatory meeting held between one or more representatives from a company’s human resources (HR) department and a departing employee. While extremely rare, it can also include the employee’s manager. The main purpose of the interview is for HR to gather insight on how to retain workers and improve the workplace while it gives the employee the chance to candidly explain (or vent) reasons for leaving and comment on improvements. If you are in an exit interview, be very careful with what you say, another hidden purpose is for employers to avoid costly legal action down the road by disgruntled employees. Everything you say can be used in court later on.

So the burning question you may be thinking is; why would I waste my time? Many argue against exit interviews, as this harsh article illustrates on Ask the Headhunter, "…exit interviews are the cockroaches of the human resources world: no one knows why they exist, no one can justify or eliminate them, and they will likely survive into the third millennium…. exit interviews invade an employee’s privacy and insult his intelligence. Employers can’t possibly believe they’re going to get credible information in such a meeting." Opponents typically ask, "Why did your employer wait until you’re leaving to ask for your opinions? It’s a great question.

Proponents, on the other hand, have some practical reasons for exit interviews. For example, to make sure all of the gadgets and access devices of a modern worker are turned in. It also gives HR an opportunity to counsel the employee on their rights under Cobra and their continuing responsibility under law to protect information they have acquired during their tenure.  It serves the final chance for the company to influence a departing employee’s feelings about the company in a positive way as he/she moves on to.

If you are leaving a company you should ask yourself how you will benefit from an exit interview, or exit survey, as they are often called. If you think that the HR department will really use your comments for improvements that may benefit some close colleagues you are leaving behind, you may find it worthwhile. Also, if you’re leaving on good terms with the possibility of returning you can make it clear that you don’t intend on burning any bridges. The bottom line is if you are leaving for the right reasons and the company understands, values, and will act on them, then an exit interview is a win-win situation.

No matter how well your skill set matches an employer’s desires, sooner or later it all comes down to convincing a real, live human being that you’re the perfect candidate for their position. What this personal contact really amounts to is a sales presentation. However, the mere thought of learning effective sales techniques is about as palatable to most techies as jumping into a swamp full of underfed alligators. Fortunately, like anything else, there are certain time honored basics that anyone can master with a bit of effort.

Know The Players

First, you need to understand the product you’re offering. Strange as it seems, no one is buying your technical capabilities. Tech skills are a dime a dozen and everyone looks like a rock star on paper. What the hiring manager is really buying is you, the human. When it’s crunch time, what gets the job done is not just technical prowess but dedication, teamwork, diplomacy, inspiration, creativity and a host of other intangibles. Your task is to demonstrate that you’re the perfect person for their team in every way.

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I’m sure you can think of a few bad interviews you’ve had during your working life. We all know how easy it is to quickly find oneself on the downward interview spiral for any number of reasons…showing up late, too little preparation or knowledge of the job/company/industry, or even a coffee stain on your shirt.  Equally, interviews can go awry because of similar reasons on the part of the recruiter, headhunter, or interviewer. When this happens, you need to make decisions, some immediate and some later, about how you will let it affect your perception of the interviewer, job and company.  Of course, most mistakes are excusable since everyone is human. But for bigger ones, you should use your best judgment when analyzing the severity of errors before you let them affect the image of the firm (the subject of a recent post on BNET you should check out).

Luckily, in the IT world, where a high degree of professionalism is the norm, bad interviewer missteps don’t typically go beyond things like a lack of preparedness, lack of focus, inexperience, too much dialogue, and inappropriate or awkward questions. Even if you are treading along mistake-free, you’ll need to maintain a congenial atmosphere throughout the interview to keep it flowing and on track. If you realize early on that the mishaps are putting the job or company in a bad light, you shouldn’t let those feelings come out verbally (or non-verbally). Just mark it as a point for future consideration while answering and asking questions.

The point here is that no matter which side of the desk you sit during an interview, make sure you’ve thoroughly reviewed your interview checklist and are ready for a few sticky moments so it is a professional and productive experience.  

Here are some additional tips on interviewing.

Face it. With most organizations working hard aligning IT with business goals the pressure is on for IT managers to increasingly do the same with themselves. That means if you are a techie rising through the ranks, you will be expected to understand and explain how the application of IT will benefit your business and then actually see it through. In a nutshell, you’ll have to prepare to be both a business person and an IT specialist. The tech analyst community has this trend dialed in.  Forrester’s CEO, George Colony, recently said, "As the people who run BT [business technology], techies are forced to engage in a discussion of process, customers and operations, not esoteric references to SOA, Web services and storage management."

So if you are a techie you should be asking yourself if you are ready to do things just like that. Meanwhile, Gartner advises (reg. req.); "Go further than the CIO priority of building business skills in the IT organization. We recommend that business and IT management recognize that IT managers are primarily business managers and, as such, require appropriate training and development."

But the reality is that many tech pros can’t or don’t want to morph into IT or business managers preferring to tinker in server rooms instead. Others are born naturals at it or have worked hard to make it. If you are an IT manager looking to boost your business knowledge there are many routes to this transformation as Gartner points out:

There is no one simple route to individual success in this transformation. Success most often comes from a combination of more-formalized business education from, for example, an MBA program, in conjunction with on-the-job experience. On-the-job experience can create exposure to business thinking, problem solving, management role models and, with luck, finding the right mentor to provide guidance and insight. With the stakes as high as they are for the effective use of IT, the businesses should be prepared to invest in the business management development of key IT management personnel. An important role for the CIO is to sponsor and promote development initiatives. These could include sponsorship in executive MBA programs; formal training for IT staff in key aspects of the business, provided by business personnel; exchanging assignments between business and IT managers; "fast track" development of high-potential IT staff; staffing IT management positions with managers who have business backgrounds; and mentoring programs, such as assigning key members of business management to mentoring assignments with key IT managers. The business will be much more likely to support these programs if the express goal is to help IT managers become business people rather than an attempt to just help build more business skills in the IT organization.

But if it’s square one that you are standing on and don’t know if you are management material, Dice’s IT Management 101 For Unrepentant Techies can give you some idea of the skills and qualities you need to get going.