9,999 people out of 10,000 telling you "don't do this, if your manager doesn't know what you did 10 months ago, the manager isn't doing their job" would have difficulty telling me what they had for breakfast last Tuesday.<p>Keep a log of your work. In fact, keep a log of everything you do. It gives you a sense of accomplishment, it gives you an idea of where your year went, and it lets you refer back to key highlights during your negotiations for a raise or promotion.<p>You think your memory is bad? There is not an organization out there that will ever recognize anything you ever did beyond the last sprint planning session or Jira ticket you closed. I've yet to work for a manager, ever, that hasn't required a hard push to hit a deadline for months on end, only to then forget that effort and opine that you took off early on Friday. They'll remember the extended lunch you took yesterday, they'll forget you worked 19 days straight without a day off, whether it is a large tech organization or a small start-up of six people.<p>I am sure many of you will no doubt attempt to regale me with tales of awesome managers who made sure to give you "atta boy" pats and remembered that thing you did when it came to year-end review, but those stellar managers are few and far between, and most of us will never get to encounter such a rare shiny creature.<p>So don't be like all those times in college when you thought to yourself "I don't need to write this down, I'll remember it", because you won't.
Ironically I think these types of exercises are part of the problem at major software companies; terrible efficiency and over hiring.<p>Because you need to “brag” to get rewarded, everyone ambitious has a list. And each list is nearly impossible for middle managers to evaluate. Someone may solve a hardcore engineering problem that has no business impact. Another person might redo some docs. Someone may create a design system version. Lots of token achievements, but not real work.<p>Real work should stand on its own and competent managers should be able to identify it. Mediocre managers rely on lists, so then people start showing up to work and making lists.
This is (unfortunately) great advice for large companies like Google, MSFT, Meta, where the internal mechanics of vying for and achieving promotion tend to drive behavior. Promo packets, calibration sessions, etc. OTOH, this is not good advice for any organization that maintains the capacity to (1) recognize and (2) value great work on merit. Better to spend your mental energy on doing something you and your colleagues deeply value, towards some shared goal.
At my company we have a shared "wins" document where team members add entries for things they're proud of. It's annoying to maintain, but it's definitely been helpful when asking for a raise.
Related:<p><i>Get your work recognized: write a brag document (2019)</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32236407">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32236407</a> - July 2022 (1 comment)<p><i>Get your work recognized: write a brag document (2019)</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28612015">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28612015</a> - Sept 2021 (3 comments)<p><i>Get your work recognized: write a brag document</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25727976">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25727976</a> - Jan 2021 (1 comment)<p><i>Get your work recognized: write a brag document</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20665225">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20665225</a> - Aug 2019 (78 comments)
While I agree with and appreciate the pragmatism of this, I think there’s a fundamental problem if an employee has to report their work to their manager (or employer, etc). Management that is not deeply aware of what their reports are doing is either unnecessary or incompetent.<p>I think this trend is mostly a result of management looking to squeeze more labor out of their reports for the same price. As soon as you make working on braggable things your reports problem, you have a lot less work to do and your reports have (more) perverse incentives to both overwork and ignore “unbraggable” work. These incentives are more aligned with contract work, not full time employment - the former usually being much pricier.
This looks great. We have a ritual in our company (Vibinex) where we get everyone to fill a self-evaluation form every 6 months with 4 questions:<p>1. What did you achieve in last 6 months?
2. What did you plan but were not able to achieve (and why)?
3. What do you plan to accomplish in the next 6 months.
4. Any thing else you want us to know.<p>This is very similar to the brag document you mentioned in terms of utility (and it is part of our performance review process).
I don't keep a brag document, but I do keep a daily journal of what I've done. It certainly makes 1:1s considerably less stressful. And it does make it easier to pad out a promo packet too.
I started doing this a few years ago and my career dynamics markedly improved. To reduce the brag factor, I present it as voluntary status updates, and also I include lessons learnt to make it more sincere.
Love this article so much. The only thing I'd add is that Slack is a really nice way to collect braggable items. Just forward brags to a private channel. Invite your manager if you want.