Mid year review time

Creating new-hire informal intro documents (eg Intro to Points, compiling advice from now 2nd years - 'what I would have done differently' type stuff), taking on a leadership role for the annual firm-wide volunteer event, documentation on how my internal network has grown every 3 months etc

Sometimes, it feels better to just get the number than the review.

It really depends on the structure of your firm. Don't you have someone internally who you can ask?

Just relax and if this is your first year, try not to respond immediately if you experience a strong reaction. Say thank you and leave.

THEN think about it and sleep on it. Call Mom & Dad or other people and ask them if they think it's fair. If not, that's when you go back in there a couple days later and say that you did X, Y, and Z but you got paid $R for the year. This is ideal if you have some leverage (IE: an offer elsewhere.)

thanks. this is my first year. its billed as 360 but i always wondered if that was more an invitation to shoot yourself

I agree with Illini's sentiments exactly. Listen, learn, and react later. The number is usually non-negotiable but if the review is a critical one, definitely follow up and maybe to an extent, follow up with people who you worked with the most and get their feedback.

To describe more, what i'm trying to be conscious of was during my two years of banking, I feel like I was probably too passive about taking feedback that I disagreed with (e.g people assumed that I was sloppy because I was a fast worker, whereas mistakes were few and far between but the rep stuck). While I agree there's nothing you can do about the number, it does set others expectations, somewhat permanently

Would anyone recommend the official review channel to convey disagreements (if any) or should it be a back-channel full-court press sort of thing. Off the cuff, I presume at most places the latter is probably a better idea.

I think the key is to not come off as defensive. Again, it's all dependent on the culture of your firm. I think that having a discussion off-line with your reviewers (or people you work with) would make sense. If you only sit down with the boss conducting the review once a year, he/she's only aggregating the info from all the various reviews that you received. He/she has no clue as to how you work day to day.

So how did the review go?