Need help writing your own self-assessment for a performance evaluation?
A performance review is a crucial tool for facilitating team communication. Managers and workers get the opportunity to assess the recent past and talk about expectations for the future during periodic evaluations. A chance to identify personal and team goals is provided by an evaluation.
The significance of self-evaluations
Self-evaluations may be beneficial for both managers and workers. The evaluations often don’t last more than 15 minutes and are advantageous for all parties concerned in the long run.
For personnel
Frequently, the self-evaluation goes together with the performance review. Self-assessments provide workers a chance to reflect on who they are as people and identify their strengths and flaws. They are crucial for both professional and personal growth. Employees can improve by analyzing their own work and conduct and gaining new perspectives.
For supervisors
Managers may profit from employee self-evaluations in several ways. They shed light on how the staff members view themselves in relation to the group and the company as a whole. They draw attention to any discrepancies or miscommunications between the management and the employee. Naturally, self-assessments provide managers a chance to hear from employees about what inspires and encourages them to perform their best job.
“Opportunities for learning and growth as well as autonomy in the workplace inherently drive modern workers. Self-evaluations, which promote autonomy and growth, are thus extremely important from a management standpoint, according to David Hassell, founder and CEO of 15Five. “Work produced by employees who are intrinsically driven tends to be more influential and long-lasting than work produced by individuals who are motivated by extrinsic factors, such bonuses or intimidation strategies.”
Self-assessment writing is a difficult assignment, despite how important it is. It can be quite challenging to analyze oneself, particularly when the analysis is presented to a supervisor for assessment. The following five suggestions can assist you in learning how to write a self-assessment if you’re having problems getting started.
Guidelines for drafting a self-evaluation
1. Have pride.
To recognize your successes and recall significant moments in your professional development is one of the main objectives of the self-evaluation. A thorough self-evaluation should identify particular activities and projects that showcase your greatest work. Employees should stress the influence those successes had on the whole organization while explaining them in order to highlight their worth to the firm.
Applied Training Systems Inc. CEO Julie Rieken said that you should make an effort to align your behaviors with a manager’s objectives. Any boss would be inspired by this alignment, which also shows that you are aware of how your job fits into the overall scheme of the organization.
If your boss wants to reach a certain goal, explain how you contributed to achieving it, Rieken said. Your accomplishments should relate to your company’s goals.
2. Be critical and truthful.
Self-evaluations are not merely for celebrating accomplishments. Analyzing your mistakes critically is another important step. Being truthful entails identifying areas that need improvement or mistakes you’ve made in the past but learned from. It’s critical to acknowledge your own shortcomings if you want to show that you can improve.
However, it’s crucial to avoid being negative in your evaluation. When criticizing the areas in which they need to improve, Timothy Butler, a senior fellow and head of professional development programs at Harvard Business School, suggested to staff members to use developmental language.
You shouldn’t admit, “This is where I truly break down,” the Harvard Business Review, according to Butler. Say, ‘This is an area I want to improve on. This is what I have discovered. We should proceed in this manner.'”
3. Constantly work to improve.
Self-evaluations should never become stagnant since people are always adjusting, learning, and evolving. Whether you had a successful year or fell short of your own ambitions, it’s critical to continue to be dedicated to developing and learning about yourself. When you take the time to describe your aims and ambitions for the upcoming year during a self-evaluation, it shows that you are not content to settle.
Adopting a development attitude and realizing that mature human potential is not fixed are the first steps, according to Hassell. “We are always evolving, and a variety of circumstances, such as the places in which we live and work, affect how much potential we have. Adopting that paradigm helps people avoid being too fixated on their perceived shortcomings or overly enamored with their victories.
Additionally, managers will view an openness to learning and trying new things as a form of coachability. Making room for progress for a struggling employee may enhance their performance. On the other hand, chances for growth are necessary for a worker to thrive in their profession and avoid boredom or stagnation.
4. Keep a record of your successes.
When it comes time to talk about your successes in your self-evaluation, it is quite helpful to be able to back them up with actual numbers. The majority of coworkers and bosses are aware of how you have done, but having hard data to support any claim makes it more credible.
According to Mike Mannon, president of WD Communications, “if employees… spent 10 seconds a day writing down their one largest accomplishment, success, metric hit, or feedback received for that day, they’d have 10 times more data than they’d ever need for self-assessment.”
Owner of Yuloff Creative Marketing Solutions Hank Yuloff concurred. When it comes to the self-assessment, “we train our customers to keep a record of daily and weekly successes so that there is very little uncertainty as to how useful they are to the organization.”
5.Be professional
It would be beneficial if you constantly presented your self-evaluations in a professional manner. This entails refraining from criticizing the boss for ineffective management or your coworkers for making your life more difficult. It also entails holding back on gushing over a management or coworker you adore. Professionalism is vital while giving either negative or good comments.
Being professional entails treating the evaluation with the same respect as any other significant task that comes across your desk. The BetterU Education Corporation’s chief operating officer, Dominique Jones, advises seeing your self-evaluation as a piece of art that evolves over time. If you allow yourself some time to think and thoroughly support your self-assessment, she claimed, you’ll be considerably satisfied with the outcome.
Use examples to back up your claims, and be sure to proofread your writing for spelling and grammar errors, said Jones in a blog post. All of them indicate how seriously you take the process and how important it is to you.
How to write a self-evaluation example
While the aforementioned advice can assist you in writing a self-evaluation, other factors, such as viewing an actual example, can aid. In order to help you build your own self-assessment, we have produced an example self-assessment.
Strengths
- I am a committed worker who is aware of both my specific duties and the bigger goals of our company. I work hard to execute my job well, but I also want to contribute to the development of our business.
- When the team has to work together to accomplish a deadline or solve a problem, I am a strong communicator who keeps on topic and helps organize the group.
- I have the ability to produce original ideas and enhance established procedures since I am a creative thinker.
Weaknesses
- I’m a little unorganized, which frequently hinders my productivity. I now know how to more effectively manage my time and focus my efforts. It’s still difficult, but I’ve made some progress and want to keep getting better.
- Sometimes when I might use assistance, I don’t ask for it. Going ahead, I’ll attempt to be more outspoken about asking for assistance since I’m always ready to help my colleagues and I know they feel the same way.
key principles
- I think that every problem can be solved by teamwork and cooperation.
- I appreciate honesty and respect between bosses and employees.
- I appreciate friendship and creating welcoming connections at work.
- I try to be a kind and supportive presence for my coworkers.
Accomplishments
- In the previous year, I never missed a deadline and frequently turned in my work early.
- I’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty to make sure that our team works as efficiently as possible, staying late and offering assistance to others when doing so will advance our shared objective.
- I went beyond of my comfort zone and made and gave a presentation. It was warmly welcomed and helped me feel more comfortable speaking in front of an audience.
Goals
- My goal is to keep improving my presenting and public speaking abilities. It is encouraging to see that I have made some progress on this skill set, which I identified as a weakness on past self-assessments, and I would like to accelerate the improvement.
- I want to advance professionally and take on a supervisory position. I like thinking strategically and collaborating with my peers, and I frequently effectively allocate resources. I might picture myself as a manager who promotes excellence among staff members and assists in fostering teamwork.
Feedback
- My boss is kind and open-minded. I’m always aware of where I stand. I value the transparency and directness of the communication since it helps me to understand what is required of me and how well I am doing so.
- I wish to participate more in team-level decision-making. I think that because supervisors have diverse perspectives, they are unable to completely comprehend the unique insights that each team member possesses. Participating staff members in strategy planning, in my opinion, may significantly enhance outcomes.
- Writing a good self-assessment requires keeping things straightforward and making use of concise, unambiguous bullet points. This fundamental approach might help you while writing a self-evaluation, even if the specifics may vary depending on your sector or job description.
Additional terms for self-evaluation
Self-evaluation questionnaires may also need you to answer certain other, more particular factors in addition to those in the aforementioned sample. Your responses will provide your company with more in-depth perceptions of your strengths and limitations. The following are some tried-and-true words that managers look for in a self-evaluation.
Communication
Here are some typical expressions to use when communicating on the job:
- With team members and project managers, I communicate clearly.
- I am able to respectfully engage in challenging talks with both bosses and coworkers.
- I give constructive criticism and am able to take it from my team and management.
Performance
The area of self-evaluations that is often the most generic is performance. The following are some suitable words to use on the form:
- I completed X projects and adhered to all deadlines and objectives.
- I take the initiative on every job and make sure I comprehend the guidelines before getting started.
- I constantly outperform everyone else on my project team.
- I’m constantly trying to do better at my profession.
Reliability
The reliability portion will include your perception of your reliability; thus, you may say something like:
- I have a solid reputation for being dependable and putting my best into every assignment.
- I consistently do my job on time and with a high degree of precision.
- I’m punctual at work and show up early to meetings out of consideration for other people’s time.
Leadership
You should employ words and phrases that show how you’ve shown initiative at work while applying for leadership positions. Here are a few illustrations:
- I constantly go above and above to assist coworkers.
- I make sure that my team members are at ease when sharing ideas.
- I try to find strategies to keep my team on task and achieve significant goals.
- I come up with ideas for inspiring others and openly provide appreciation when performance objectives are accomplished.
Innovation
The self-assessment for innovation looks for inventive problem-solving techniques on your part. Here are some examples of sentences:
- I’m constantly looking for new ways to oversee projects and make sure everything goes according to plan.
- I’m not hesitant to explore for non-traditional answers.
- I try to adapt to changes in order to keep projects on schedule rather than letting them disrupt my workflow.
Teamwork
You must show that you can work well with others in a team setting by utilizing language like this:
- I keep a cheerful disposition for the benefit of my supervisors and coworkers.
- I urge team members to cooperate so that we may all accomplish our shared objective.
- I always take into account my coworkers’ emotions and respect their perspectives.
- aptitude for addressing issues
- You are required to discuss how you have come up with solutions to typical workplace issues in this area. Here are a few examples of sentences:
- I am able to approach a subject from all angles and come up with an original answer.
- If I’m having trouble coming up with a work-related challenge to solve, I’m willing to seek for assistance.
Making performance reviews an ongoing process
Performance reviews enable everyone to understand where they are and how they are doing in regard to the company’s objectives. Performance reviews are frequently conducted annually at work, but they should instead be a continuous procedure to fairly and correctly assess workers and foster a culture of open communication.
“Self-evaluations cannot only be a yearly occurrence. They are a component of a consistent and continuing reflection practice, according to Hassell. “You can never see the whole picture if you only look at a single snapshot. Focusing on a certain incident or experience makes it far too simple to build a whole narrative around a performance.
By doing this, “recency bias”—a form of tunnel vision that focuses on the present rather than the overall picture—will be avoided. Additionally, it fosters a culture of inclusivity and reciprocity in which staff members are encouraged to provide managers with feedback just as frequently as managers do the same for them. Overall, a successful workplace is one that is open and communicative.
Employees might view setbacks as teaching opportunities if their managers take on a coaching or mentoring role, according to Hassell. They may also take pleasure in the compliments of a job well done while avoiding dwelling on earlier successes because every organization will eventually want peak staff performance.
