Questions to Ask Your Manager in a Performance Review: Twelve That Work, Five That Backfire

Three things are at stake in this sequence, and none of them is obvious.

What you ask indicates what matters to you, and that information is retained far longer than the rest of the review. A precise question forces a precise answer, which becomes a reference point. And above all: it is the only moment in the hour when the framing belongs to you.

Prepare four, ask two or three. Beyond that, the exchange turns into an interrogation, and the last question cancels out the effect of the ones before it.

Group 1 — The criteria

1. "What will I be assessed on next year, concretely?"

What it produces: it forces criteria to be stated. An appraisal that rests on criteria announced in advance can be discussed and corrected; an appraisal that rests on a general impression cannot. This is what research on procedural justice identifies as decisive — not the severity of a judgement, but whether it is grounded and open to challenge. What to do with it: write it down, and send it back in the follow-up message. A criterion stated out loud and never recorded will no longer exist in eleven months.

2. "What would a very good level in this role look like, to you?"

What it produces: the description of a target, rather than a judgement on the gap. It is the constructive version of the previous question, and it lands better when the review has been tense. What it often reveals: that the target has never been articulated. This is not rare, and knowing it beats carrying on aiming by guesswork.

3. "Looking back at the year, what mattered most in your eyes?"

What it produces: the real hierarchy, which almost never coincides with the one in the written objectives. Many people discover at that moment that the project they spent six months on weighed less than being available during a crisis.

Group 2 — Usable feedback

4. "If there were one single thing to change in the way I work, what would it be?"

What it produces: the most effective question on the list. The "one single" constraint forces a choice and blocks the vague, atmospheric answer. It almost always obtains something precise, including from people not naturally inclined to give feedback. How to receive it: without defending yourself. Take a note, thank them, and ask for an example if the answer is too general. Any justification at that instant guarantees that nothing more will be said to you next year.

5. "What am I missing to move up a level?"

What it produces: it shifts the feedback from appraisal to development — two registers the review mixes up constantly. It is especially useful when the year has been decent without being remarkable, which is to say in most cases. The trap: it sometimes invites an answer in terms of personality traits ("more confidence", "more leadership"). Bring it back to observable behaviour: "what would that look like in practice, in a meeting or on a specific file?"

6. "How is my work seen beyond you?"

What it produces: information you do not have and that no other question yields. What circulates about a person in an organisation is rarely what they believe — and they usually find out too late. A caution: it presupposes a sound working relationship. Asked in a degraded climate, it will be read as anxiety, and it will yield nothing.

Group 3 — Scope and what comes next

7. "What is changing in the team or in the department this year?"

What it produces: the context in which your objectives sit — a departure, a hire, a reorganisation, a change of tool. These things often decide more of your year than the objectives themselves, and they are almost never raised spontaneously.

8. "What is decided above you, and what do you have no control over?"

What it produces: it locates your counterpart's real power, which avoids two costly mistakes — asking for what they cannot give, and holding against them what they did not decide. A useful side effect: it is often received as a sign that you understand the role. Many first-line managers carry decisions they did not take, and being credited with that changes the conversation.

9. "Is there a subject you would like to see me take on?"

What it produces: it is the best question to ask when you want to progress without yet having a precise plan. It reverses the request: instead of claiming scope, it offers availability — and it very often obtains a concrete answer, because every manager has a list of subjects with no owner.

Group 4 — Commitments

10. "Where do things stand on what was agreed last year?"

What it produces: it reminds everyone that a review commits both parties. Work on the psychological contract — the set of unwritten expectations between an employee and an employer — shows that it is unkept commitments, more than unmet objectives, that produce disengagement. How to ask it: without reproach, with the date. "We talked in January about a course on X. Where are we with it?" The fact is not disputable, and the question accuses nobody.

That still assumes you remember what was agreed — and that is precisely what gets lost. Commitments made are there in the year's correspondence, dated: that is what ScanMyJob puts back in series, without adding any interpretation.

11. "On what I am asking for, what depends on you and what does not?"

What it produces: it separates the possible from the desirable, and it prevents the most corrosive kind of waiting there is — the six months spent hoping for a decision nobody ever had the power to take.

12. "When do we review these subjects?"

What it produces: the most important on the list, and the least spectacular. A date turns intentions into reference points. Without it, the only way to reopen a subject is a fresh incident. What to do with it: propose it yourself — "end of March?" — rather than leaving it hanging, and confirm it in writing the same day.

The five questions that backfire

"Why did X get more than me?" It puts your counterpart in the position of defending someone who is absent, it forces them to answer you on ground where you can demonstrate nothing, and it leaves a lasting trace — comparison is the argument people remember longest. "Can you guarantee me that…?" A question that invites a promise obtains either a refusal or a vague commitment, and it puts the person opposite on the defensive. Prefer the factual version: "what would need to be true for that to be possible?" "What do you think of Y?" Asking for an opinion about a colleague commits the person answering, will be reported back, and commits you just as much. No benefit, certain risk. "Are you happy with me?" It invites an atmospheric answer — "yes, yes, all fine" — which teaches you nothing and closes the door on questions 4 and 5, the only ones that genuinely pay. Eight questions in a row. Number counts as much as content. Past the third, the exchange changes register and your counterpart stops answering and starts managing.

Afterwards: the note that makes answers hold

A spoken answer evaporates. A three-line message sent the same day — "just to be sure I understood: the criteria for the year are A, B, C; we review at the end of March" — does two things: it fixes a shared reference point, and it makes it possible, six months later, to discuss an observed gap rather than an impression.

No reproach, nobody copied in, no insistent phrasing. Three lines are enough, and they are worth the whole preparation.

The tests on the platform help you take stock of your own relationship to feedback and appraisal — which is what decides your ability to ask question 4 and to do something with the answer. The assistant can help adapt these questions to your situation.

Three things this article does not do

It does not supply a script. Twelve questions prepared and fired off in a row produce the opposite of the intended effect. Two or three, chosen according to what you are after, are enough. It says nothing about the applicable frame. Whether these meetings are compulsory, how often they must happen and what formalities apply belongs to your HR department, an employee representative or the relevant labour authority. It describes nobody. Every question is about criteria, facts and commitments — never about what a person supposedly is.