Ninety days
The Review You Should Ask For
Nobody will volunteer an assessment of your first month. Asking for one at week four, specifically, gets an answer that is worth acting on.
What the people on this page had to find out, and where from
What your manager actually wants from you
you asked8Asked directly in week eight, and the answer was two sentences
That your probation review happens in week twelve
written down1In the contract, and read once you went looking
two things you had to know · nobody told you any of them · the median arrived in week 8 · all two you went and got
Two standards that applied to the whole quarter. One was asked for in week eight and could have been asked in week two.
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Who had a view of your first quarter, and who was asked for it
Introduced, and needed · 5
- Your own manager — met in before you started; needed in week 4
- The colleague who reviewed most of your work — met in week 1; needed in week 3. Noticed from who answered in the channel
- The person who showed you the system — met in before you started; needed in week 2
- The designer on the adjacent product — met in week 2; needed in week 6
- Somebody who joined four months before you — met in week 1; needed in week 4. You asked whether there was a recent joiner
Needed, and never introduced · 1
- Whoever was on the receiving end of your first finished work — needed in week 5. Found by asking who used it
six people · five you were introduced to · six you actually needed · one you had to find yourself
Six people with a view, and two of them were asked. The two with the most detailed picture of your actual work were not among them. One person's own twelve weeks.
Nobody is going to tell you how it is going. Not because anybody is withholding it, but because there is no moment at which it naturally comes up, and the formal review is at the end when it is too late to change anything.
So ask. Once at about week four, and once at about week nine.
Why week four
Early enough that anything raised can still be fixed, and late enough that there is something to assess.
At week two nobody has a view. At week eight a view has formed and has started to harden. Week four is the window in which an impression is forming, is still provisional, and can be redirected by one conversation.
The question
Not "how am I doing", which produces "fine, really well, no concerns" — not because it is untrue but because it is the only answer that fits the question.
Three forms that get a real answer:
Is there anything I should be doing differently? I would rather hear it now than in three months.
If you had to name one thing for me to change, what would it be?
What do you wish I had done in the first month that I have not done?
All three make it easy to say something mildly negative, which is the whole difficulty. A manager who has one small concern will not raise it unprompted, because raising it unprompted makes it a bigger thing than it is.
What to do with the answer
Act on it visibly, within a fortnight, and say that you have.
You said I should be flagging slips earlier — I have started putting a line in the channel as soon as I know rather than waiting for the standup. Shout if that is not what you meant.
That is the entire mechanism by which feedback changes anybody's opinion. A concern raised, acted on and reported back is a concern resolved; a concern raised and silently absorbed is a concern that is still there in month three, because nobody could see it had been addressed.
Who else to ask
In the panel above, two people were asked and the two with the clearest picture of the actual work were not.
Two conversations worth having beyond your manager:
Whoever has reviewed most of your work. They have seen more of what you produce than anybody. "Is there anything in my work that keeps coming up? I would rather know the pattern than fix each one separately."
Whoever used the first thing you finished. The only person who knows whether it was any good.
Both of these are informal, both take four minutes, and neither is a thing most new people think to do.
The recent joiner, again
The person who joined four months before you is the best source for a different question: not how you are doing, but how it is going.
Does this feel about right for three months in? I cannot tell whether I am behind.
They will answer honestly, they remember, and it is the only route to a calibrated answer. Almost everybody in a first quarter believes they are behind, and almost nobody is.
The formal review
If there is one at the end of probation, it will mostly be a summary of views formed in month one.
Which means the two conversations above are the ones that determine what it says, and the formal review itself is largely the reading out of a decision already made. Treat it accordingly: prepare for it, by all means, and do not expect it to be where anything is decided.
If the answer is that everything is fine
Sometimes it is, and sometimes "everything is fine" is what a manager says when they have not thought about it.
The way to tell is to ask once more, narrowly.
Nothing at all? Even something small — I would rather adjust now than find out in month six.
If the answer is still nothing, take it. Plenty of first months go well and there is no requirement that somebody find a fault.
What it does mean is that you should ask somebody else. The note above lists two: whoever reviews your work, and whoever used the first thing you finished. Both see something your manager does not, and both will answer a specific question about a specific piece of work far more readily than a general one about you.
Writing down what was said
Immediately afterwards, in their words.
Conversations of this kind are remembered selectively by both parties, and the selection runs in opposite directions: you will remember the criticism and they will remember having been encouraging.
A dated note of what was actually said settles that, not as evidence against anybody, but because in week twelve somebody will refer back to week four and neither of you will be sure what was agreed.
Three lines is enough: what they said was going well, what they said to change, and anything either of you undertook to do.