Asking for performance review after three months in the job

Question

I started working in my current company in September. As soon as I started working in this medium size company, I dove right into the big projects, they didn't provide any education. Here, I am the only person with my kind of knowledge, so my department is formed by myself and my boss, therefore I cannot compare myself and my accomplishments to anyone. Also, they never give me deadlines, they just tell me "get this done as soon as possible" which, depending on the magnitude of the work, might be three hours or three weeks. Therefore, I don't know if I am meeting their time expectations.

I know that I am doing well, since I have fixed important mistakes that the guy right before me committed, but I don't know if that's what they had in mind so I'm just meeting expectations, or if I am impressing them, or if they are just 'okay' with my work but they thought I could do it better.

I have a six month long contract but they told me they would get me a long term contract as long as I performed well during this first contract.

Since I don't have any way to know if I am actually performing well, and they never brought up a performance review meeting, should I ask for one now that I have reached half of the length of the contract? Should I just wait for the six months to be over and assume that I'm doing well as long as I see my boss smiling?

Also, I was thinking that a meeting now would help me have an idea about what kind of raise I can ask for when my contract expires.

What do you guys think? Is it too early to ask for detailed feedback? I don't want to seem like a try-hard.

Answer 1

I would recommend you have an informal discussion with your boss about your progress.

If you say you want a performance review, this could make a lot of work for your boss when really you just want to know how you are doing. I would just send an email to your boss that looks something like this:

Hi Boss,

I am really enjoying my time working with Company XYZ and I was hoping to talk to about my progress to date.

Once you get into the meeting, just tell your boss, you realize that there is an opportunity for extension if you are doing good work. Stress that you aren't looking a formal answer, or even an answer today, but you just want to know if you are meeting his expectation.