Your supervisor most likely has her own opinions regarding your working style and efforts. But in order to get a better sense of your performance, it’s common practice to ask employees to complete a self assessment to gauge their perspective on how things are going. Though stressful, this policy allows you the opportunity to highlight the projects you’re most proud of, to reflect on the biggest challenges you’ve encountered throughout the year, and to tell your side of the story.
By compiling your own self assessment, you’re given a tremendous chance to communicate openly with your superior, while showing a great deal of self awareness. Take advantage of this task, and use it to demonstrate why you are, why you have been, and why you’ll continue to be a great asset to your company. Here’s how.
Do Your Homework
In a perfect world, all of your projects throughout the year would be perfectly documented – the results or KPI’s, any revenue generated, reviews or feedback. If you don’t have access to an attache case filled with meticulous notes, don’t fret – but let this be a lesson for next year, or your next job: it’s always a wise decision to record your contributions and responsibilities with your company. Of course, this is easier to manage if you consistently make note as you go, but this is easier said than done.
So your first step is to pull together all of the relevant statistics and information for your report. This includes quantitative figures – think of concrete statements like “In Quarter 1, I increased revenue by 12 percent by improving our process speeds and saving time from our employees in the marketing department.” When making claims like these, be sure that you can back them up.
Time to Reflect
In addition to statistics, you should also consider how you’ve improved over the last year, either since you were hired or since your last important discussion with your supervisor. Presumably, you’ve discussed professional goals. This could be as simple as “be more punctual,” or as complex as “Attend more seminars to help improve the performance of our company’s marketing department.”
Make a note of these goals as previously discussed with your boss, and reflect on how you’ve taken these into account and made efforts to improve.
For example, you could write, “Since our last discussion on January 18th, I’ve communicated more transparently with my supervisor about my punctuality, and the importance of being in the office at 9 am, sharp. I’ve fixed the issue by arriving at 8:45 am.” Or for the latter example, you could say, “After acknowledging our marketing department’s need for innovation, I’ve introduced a biweekly meeting in the marketing department to share knowledge and best practices that I’ve learned from a number of seminars in the last quarter. I attended the ‘Smith Marketing Magic’ conference in February, as well as …” and so on.
Looking to the Future
Many senior managers want to see ambition and drive from their employees. So in addition to highlighting your achievements and progress over the last few months, it would also behoove you to mention how you see yourself going forward within the company. If you have aspirations to move up higher within the organization, you can delicately hint your desire to increase the span of your current duties. Phrase this with care, and leave room for conversation with your manager.
This can be tricky. Try something like this: “After spending the last year as the Acting Manager of the Marketing Department, I’ve improved my management skills by managing a team of 12. I see that I would be happy and motivated to take on more responsibilities, and I look forward to discussing similar opportunities within the company in the future.”
Overall, it’s important to remember to be confident, authentic, and open when writing your self assessment. If you have any pressing questions, it might be a good idea to ask the HR department or a trusted colleague for an idea of what specific topics they’ve covered or what format they used when completing their self assessment.
But follow these steps, and your self assessment could work wonders in improving your relationship with your superiors, as well as advancing your career.
