Performance review season coming up for analysts at my shop.
Any advice from experience on best practises?
I feel as though I have been underperforming. So when management inevitably asks “so how do you think you are doing?” Do I be honest and lean into the fact that I feel I have been underperforming or hold those cards close to the chest until management says their piece?
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These things are mostly/entirely political and at this point, it’s too late to materially change anything.
Unless your Group Head’s favorite daughter/son suddenly falls in love and demands to marry you within the next month, just relax and don’t think about it.
It doesn’t behoove you to volunteer the fact that you’re worried you’re underperforming. That’s putting blood in the water for no real benefit.
Hold out and let them say their thoughts. If it’s good, hooray for you. If it’s not, most banks have pretty compressed bonus ranges and you’re early in your career, so it’s not the end of the world. At that point, either things are fixable and you can listen to the feedback and fix things, or they are not fixable, in which case you start talking to other people. It’ll all work out, but no need to jump the gun and start giving excuses (which you never proposed doing) or proactively apologizing.
The review goes by quick. If they do ask for your opinion, which they may not, be honest and stick to the positives. Talk about the interesting projects you’ve been on, the cool work you’ve done, what you learned. Only bring up improvement areas if they ask for it
Steel yourself. Performance reviews present as if they’re some objective metric, but in reality they’re the exact opposite. It’s literally just how somebody feels about you.
Some advice that will take you far; focus on your career performance (objective fact with long term implications) and not your job performance review (subjective opinion that ends in 5 minutes). What your coverage or product head (who talks to you once per year) says about you during a 10 minute conversation does not change who you are. Someone saying you’re amazing doesn’t make you amazing the truth always reveals itself with time.
You are what you are. Either you’re detail oriented, or you’re not. Either you are strong and reliable at modeling and valuation, or you’re not. Either you perform well and deliver under stressful circumstances, or you don’t. Either you’ve worked on closed deals, or you haven’t. Either you understand your industry and clients, or you don’t. Either you’re proactive in anticipating and pointing out future requests and considerations, or you aren’t. Either you are the obvious choice for the challenging projects, or you’re not. Focus on what’s real, not the politics of how much your team likes you.
Note: this assumes your dad isn’t a PE partner and that you’re not a 10/10 blonde bombshell from an SEC school.
How would this change if you are an SEC blonde? lol
You would get a pass from the review being awkward / a difficult conversation...
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