Demo of using AI to prepare for your annual review

- So let's see if ChatGPT here can help with my fictional annual review. I'm going to pretend to be a recruitment executive. Now, I've never worked in recruitment, so a lot of what I say here might actually be nonsense. But that's not really the point. What the point is here is to give some information about a fictional situation, to get that summarized, and to get some advice as to how I can position myself when I'm having the annual review and how I can talk about things. So it just is about helping me organize my thoughts and position things in the best way that gives me the greatest chance of getting rewarded or recognized for what I do. So let's put in this prompt. This prompt doesn't ask you to add any variables. It doesn't ask you to attach a document. It's just going to be a conversation and it will interview me to get all the information it needs. Now, the first thing that we'll do is we are going to switch to voice mode. That's the reason that we're in ChatGPT. Now, you can use any other AI tool and just type in But I really like the fact that we can use voice mode because it keeps it more conversational. It puts me into a different mode. Because when I'm writing, I'm trying to get the words absolutely right and I'm editing what I do. But when I'm talking, which is what I would be doing in an annual review, then I'm just speaking off the top of my head. And this will help me articulate things in what I think is a far more natural way. So I will let you follow the first little bit of this voice conversation. But beyond that, I will fast forward until we get to the end of the document. So here we go. Hi, could you ask me that question again, please? - [ChatGPT] Of course. Did you have a previous annual review in your current role? If yes, what goals or expectations were set for you during that review? If no, what expectations were communicated when you started this role? - Yes, well, I've worked for this company for three years, and I've had two previous annual reviews. In the last annual review- (tape whirring) Okay, so we've gone through a conversation there, and you've just seen me yabbering to my computer. All completely made up. But let me take a quick scroll through what we've done. So it asked me these questions, I answered, and it's given me a transcript of everything that I said over here. It's then giving me feedback here and asking me for even more information because this is a conversation. It's a backwards and forwards. I babbled, it asked me for more. Now, after all of this, it gave me... Okay, so somewhere in the chat here, it managed to lose the important part. So what I'm going to say here is, "Please, can you give me the output I asked for again" I'll say "It's missing from our chat." So hopefully now it'll be able to give us that output again and we will be able to have a look at it. And here we go. So this is the summary of achievements. So it's saying here that this is the stuff that I said that I've done in the last year. Brought in new clients, high-value placements, competitive wins, great. Now it's telling me, after it's summarized that, how I should present these things. So it says, use a structured format, challenge-action-result. Okay, I wouldn't have thought of that. That's quite good. Highly measurable outcomes. Okay so, so highlight anything that's a figure, amount of money, number of whatevers I've done. Put the numbers in there, get the stats there because it's very hard to argue with numbers. And then emphasize how this aligns with your boss's priorities. So that's a great idea. So understanding what it is that your boss is after, what they measure success by, and using that as a way of talking about what I've done, right? Here's the requests to make and how to ask for them. I want promotion to senior consultant, okay? "Given my achievements over the past year and the goals set in my last review, I believe I'm ready to take on the responsibilities of a senior consultant. This would allow me to contribute even more to the division's success," right? Leadership opportunities. "I'd like to take on more leadership responsibilities, such as mentoring junior team members, or spearheading strategic client projects to continue growing my management skills." So it's great, it's giving us these little quotes that we can then base what we say off of these quotes. Potential objections. This is probably one of the most useful things in here. Going into the mindset of our boss and working out what are their potential objections, okay? "We're not promoting right now." How do you counter that? "I understand promotions may be limited, but my contributions have added significant value, and I'd like to discuss how we can structure a pathway for this in the near future." Okay, so you're being persistent. You're not just taking no for an answer, you are being persistent, and that's a good way of doing it without being aggressive or without being too pushy. But "Others on the team also perform well." "That's great to hear." Okay, acknowledge that. "I believe my specific contributions are securing high-value clients and competitive wins set me apart. I'd like to build on that success for the team." That's great. Information to gather. So it's here, it says, right, go in, get the numbers, get feedback and testimonials, bring in evidence of the results. What are the industry benchmarks? Find those as well. And then some advice for interaction. And you can then do a simulated annual review. This is phenomenal that, at the end, once it's got all of this information, we could go back into voice mode and say, "Okay, let's simulate this annual review. You pretend to be my boss, and then give me feedback." Because that's actually the end of the prompt here where we say that if I say yes to a simulated annual review meeting, take on the role of my boss, ask me the questions I'm most likely to get in our discussion. When our discussion is over, this is important, please give me feedback on my responses. Let me know what worked well, what I shouldn't have said, and give me a bullet point list of improvements I could make to improve my chances of getting what I'm after. So this is great. I'm not going to do it here, but give it a go. Give this a go. I mean, seriously, put this in your diary and make sure that you run this prompt in plenty of time for you to prepare for your next annual review meeting. And who knows, within the next year or two, you might be running the company. Then you can gimme a call, get me to come in, and do some training for you. That'd be a smart thing to do.