Sometimes companies ask employees to write their performance reviews. Through these self-evaluations, employers can understand how employees feel about their performance. Don’t worry, this is a great opportunity to highlight your work. In your self-evaluation, try to showcase your work, achievements, and performance as much as possible.
Preliminary Preparation
Confirm the format required by the company. Depending on the type of business, the format required by the company differs. Some companies will send electronic templates to employees, and others will ask employees to outline certain aspects of the company that they want to know about in their self-evaluations.
- If required by the company, use the self-evaluation format required by the company. Be careful to write your self-evaluation carefully according to the template given by the company, so that you will not miss any details and will not make the company think you are careless. Sometimes companies just ask you to fill out a self-evaluation form. In all other cases, you will need to submit a complete written report.
- It’s best to figure out what the company wants before the submission deadline. This way you can record your work achievements throughout the year according to the company’s requirements. You can also slightly adjust your work performance to meet the assessment standards.
Don’t rush through your self-evaluation. The self-evaluation should emphasize your excellent work, so there should be no spelling or grammatical errors. It’s a good idea to make several drafts and start preparing in advance.
- The self-evaluation will eventually become part of your permanent employment record, so take it seriously. If something goes wrong with your work and you want to dispute it, a previous assessment will be critical.
- Use technical terminology and be concise and to the point. Being concise means picking out some of your best work and discussing it in depth. You can keep your self-evaluation to a few pages in length. You don’t need to write out every detail of everything, just focus on what you want to highlight and support it with some specific evidence. But learn to edit these yourself, because no one wants to read a 30-page self-evaluation.
Before writing, sort out and organize your work throughout the year. Before writing your self-evaluation, compile a list of key documents that will help you in your writing. It is best to collect key documents from an entire year.
- If the format allows, you may include examples of your work in your self-evaluation. Carefully select the examples that best highlight the results of your work. In addition, collect the work goals you set during your last self-evaluation.
- Collect the work notes you took and the mid-year progress review your boss gave you (if any). The work notes you take during the year may help you in your writing. Such year-round notes can make self-evaluation more specific and meaningful.
Confirm what the company expects from you. It’s a good idea to include the company’s expectations in your self-evaluation. What specifically does the company expect from you? If you’re not sure, ask. It’s important to tie your self-evaluation to the company’s expectations of you.
- Parse your job description. While some job descriptions may be out of date and may not include some of the company’s implicit expectations of employees, they can help you organize your thoughts.
- Break down the work tasks and consider how to complete them step by step in practice. You have the right to know what the company expects of you. If you don’t know these, you can easily receive some subjective and unfair criticism in the job evaluation.
Write the Right Content
Highlight the highlights of your work performance. Don’t be too modest, self-evaluation is an opportunity to showcase the most valuable work you do. You should exaggerate their value and be proud of what you have done.
- Focus your report on the things that impacted your company the most during the year. Choose those that best align with the company’s goals and that you specifically mentioned in your last self-evaluation. You don’t need to discuss everything.
- Even when emphasizing your work accomplishments, project a friendly and professional spirit. Keep a positive attitude, don’t insult or belittle your colleagues, and just focus on the good aspects of your job.
- Don’t forget to write about your early achievements. Sometimes people only focus on the last thing they do.
Outline the tangible benefits of your job performance. Don’t just use ordinary and general words, use more evidence to prove it, it will be more convincing.
- Write a self-evaluation using facts, charts, and concrete data. For example, if your job is to run a social media account for a company, it would be a good idea to include some metrics in your self-evaluation, such as the number of likes you recently received, the number of subscriptions, etc., and choose those that can add value to your statement. Metrics of credibility.
- Compare your results to company goals and overall mission. Use this to prove your value as an employee.
Outline and discuss personal work goals. Be specific in your personal work goals for the coming year and discuss the development goals you are trying to achieve.
- Explain how you achieve these goals. Evaluate the goals you set early on and describe how you achieved those goals.
- If you are asked or take the initiative to do work beyond your responsibilities, it is best to mention it in your self-evaluation.
Discuss core competencies. Usually, companies will have core competencies that they hope employees can demonstrate at work. You should outline these core competencies and discuss them in depth.
- Focus on how you specifically demonstrated the core capabilities expected by the company and how you exceeded the company’s expectations.
- It’s best to use words from the company’s core competency requirements. This will better connect your work achievements with the company’s expectations.
Rate yourself carefully. Some self-evaluations ask you to rate yourself, and you need to have a clear understanding of what the chosen rating represents.
- A score of 5 usually means you have demonstrated leadership skills and are an agent of change in the company. A score of 4 usually means that your work ability has exceeded the company’s standards and is a role model for other employees.
- A score of 3 generally means you have met the company’s expectations. But you should confirm how the company defines and understands each score, because for some companies, a score of 3 may represent average and be considered not good enough. A score of 1 or 2 is a poor self-evaluation, and such a score is not good for your career.
Conduct self-evaluations effectively. Sometimes companies ask employees to conduct self-evaluations in a predetermined order. If the company does not require it, then how to better conduct self-evaluation is very important.
- First of all, there must be a very strong and positive opening statement, which should include the general content of the whole year summary.
- Next list your work accomplishments, along with evidence to support those accomplishments. Question every achievement and push yourself to find evidence that your contributions are meaningful and valuable. Don’t start with a negative message.
- Even if you have a goal that you didn’t meet, or acknowledge that you have areas for improvement, don’t put it at the end of the report because you need to start and end on a positive note. Sometimes, the most impressive thing for readers is the ending, so the ending is very important. Put areas that still need improvement in the middle of your self-evaluation.
Use Appropriate Tone
As the name suggests, the content of self-evaluation should focus on yourself. After all, you are being asked to evaluate yourself. However, sometimes employees make the mistake of using a negative tone or involving too many other things when writing self-evaluations.
- Don’t use defensive language. Try to be as positive as possible. For example, you could write: “I respect other people’s time and try to schedule meetings around the schedules of my teammates, colleagues, and clients.” This example about time is very positive and can give others a good impression.
- Don’t involve other people. Don’t criticize other people’s work or character in your self-evaluation.
- When you highlight your work accomplishments, don’t compare yourself to others. You can highlight the results of your work but don’t belittle colleagues who don’t have the same results.
Offer some constructive criticism of your shortcomings. If your self-evaluation is filled with compliments about yourself, it will look unreal. However, admitting a mistake also requires great caution.
- Write about the shortcomings to show that you are actively dealing with the problem. For example, you might write: “Because I’m very focused on my work and can be a bit perfectionistic at times, I’m occasionally perceived as being too blunt and rude when speaking to my colleagues. Now I’m trying to change my communication Method.” This way of writing not only admits his shortcomings but also conveys the positive side of the author. At work, it’s both good to be a perfectionist and to be very dedicated to your work.
- Identify areas where you need to improve, but don’t write too much. Spend most of the page reviewing your work accomplishments, while also acknowledging some shortcomings that you are trying to improve. However, don’t spend too much time criticizing yourself, or it will appear that you lack confidence.
- Write more suggestions for improvement. Always maintain a positive attitude, be action-oriented, and use developmental language. Instead of saying you failed at something, say it was an area you wanted to try and explain how you planned to do it.
Strive for career development opportunities. If you want more training or conference opportunities, you can write it in your self-evaluation. However, don’t negotiate salary in your self-evaluation.
- You can also come up with any ideas for innovative projects that will help the company.
- Think about how your boss might use your self-evaluation. Confirm whether your self-evaluation will be shared with others, whether it will be used as a basis for bonuses, etc.
Use complete sentences. Some people will write all their work notes into their self-evaluation, which is very careless. Don’t let your self-evaluation turn into an abridged version of your work notes.
- For example, don’t use a very short phrase like “content correction.” It’s best to elaborate in a complete sentence, and you can organize the content in bullet points.
- Your immediate boss is not necessarily the only person reading your self-evaluation. It will likely be read by a more senior manager, so you need to explain the information in it clearly and in detail rather than assuming everyone knows what you do and what you want to say.
Always stay positive and honest. Even when mentioning an area that needs improvement, you can move the conversation to the future. Focus on the future, not the failures of the past.
- Don’t sound negative, critical, angry, or arrogant. You need to maintain a positive attitude, be a good partner, and highlight your work accomplishments with dignity.
- If you have any dissatisfaction with the company, don’t complain in your self-evaluation. Instead, seize the opportunity to emphasize why the company needs you.
Show facts, not just statements. When writing a self-evaluation, it is important to provide detailed information and not just make general statements.
- For example, provide accurate attendance and specific examples of your reliability, rather than saying “I always get the job done reliably, attend meetings on time and with a high attendance rate.”
- Supporting general statements with evidence, including data, makes self-evaluations more meaningful and credible.
Tips
- Write your self-evaluation in advance, not the night before the deadline.
- Be sure to stay positive.
- Read last year’s self-evaluation so you can more clearly recall the goals you listed last year.
- Don’t fake or lie.
- Don’t negatively mention other employees.