It could be a little uncomfortable for some people to self evaluate and have an unbiased perspective of our performance, but we want to show you a few self evaluation / self assessment examples to help you run a successful self assessment and gather crucial data for your next performance review.
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Let’s face it, performance reviews are nerve-wracking for employees and difficult for managers. As managers, we want to make sure we’re covering every aspect of our reports’ performance. And as employees it’s hard to recognize the areas of opportunity we need to work on to improve and we also want our leaders to recognize the positive aspects of our work. But we can always rely on self evaluation to run a complete and effective performance review that’ll skyrocket our confidence and performance, and that will also help with employee engagement.
A strong self performance evaluation will set the tone for the entire performance review process. So, going through your self assessment gives you the chance to evaluate your duties, your projects, your role in the company, and what you add to it. A self evaluation allows you to see how well you’ve performed and the goals you achieved, it helps you recognize your victories and efforts and identify areas where you need some help or guidance. And it’s not just about strengths and weaknesses, but also about tracking your progress and mapping your development and professional growth. Having all this data will open the door to an honest and rich conversation with your manager that’ll lead to a successful performance review!
There are 3 main questions you ought to ask yourself when doing a self evaluation:
Always be open to constructive feedback when working on a project with other team members. Try to keep notes of both positive and negative comments you receive throughout your work routine. You can also ask your peers for feedback when you plan on doing your self assessment, but nothing like gathering the information right on the spot.
The star method will help you identify your top accomplishments and acknowledge your areas of opportunity. Start by pointing out a Situation or Task regarding a specific goal or project. Then describe the Action you took to try to accomplish such a goal, and finally outline the Results you achieved. This method will give you a clear picture of what you contributed to the organization, and where you experienced mishaps, and why. For best results, try to have as much analytics as possible, for example: “I knew we needed to push our sales to meet our requirements, so I started cold calling at “X” time because I noticed more people answered their phone calls and I raised my sales by N%”.
Looking back at your job description is a great reference for what you were hired to do and what you were expected to deliver in your position. This will provide you with a specific framework on what you should highlight the most: what skills and/or tasks you’re exceeding at, how you’re helping your colleagues, what you mastered that was difficult at the beginning, etc.
Within your performance review, your manager will assess different areas, but most reviews cover 3 specific ones. Below you will find some self evaluation examples that will help you when structuring and writing a performance evaluation for yourself:
Every employee has a set of tasks and goals meant to achieve during each quarter/month or year. During your performance review, you will both obviously talk about how these were met or not. This is your opportunity to objectively review the results and proudly share your achievements and also take accountability for those goals you didn’t meet.
Example as a Social Media Manager: “During the past year, my goals were to increase brand exposure and position our company online as an industry leader. Each quarter I assigned my team members two main goals: increase the amount of Instagram followers by 15% each quarter and generate organic engagement and interactions with them."
Not only did we meet our goals, but we exceeded our target of a 15% increase of followers adding an extra 7% each quarter. And I am incredibly proud of my team since they developed the idea of doing Instagram live tutorials on how to use our products for different purposes, generating outstanding results in engagement and positioning our brand on the top 20 of our industry on the platform.”
Example as a Sales Rep: “In the first and second quarter I exceeded my sales targets by 12% through an outbound campaign that the marketing team helped me develop. Unfortunately by the third quarter, the campaign had already reached its maximum potential, which I had been warned about but I didn’t take time to prepare for that moment beforehand, causing me to drop sales by 7%... for this last quarter I decided to go old fashioned on my strategy and so far it’s working out but I haven’t yet reached my goal.”
It’s never easy to evaluate our job performance, and it’s certainly not easy to recognize those areas where we need some help. Nobody’s perfect! We all have skills to improve and develop. And a manager always appreciates an employee that takes ownership of their weaknesses and actually tries to do something about them.
Example as a Customer Support Rep: “Even though I provided good service to our customers, I noticed that there are areas of opportunity for improving my performance and professional development. I was only able to sell upgrades of our products to 10% of my customers, coming short on my goal of 12%. So I figured I need to better understand the mind of our customers and develop better communication skills and confidence for upselling. I’d like to ask for additional training in order to improve in those areas and be able to meet my goals next quarter and keep in line with our company’s big picture goals.”
Example as an HR Specialist: “I’m so glad we’ve been able to find great candidates for the open positions we currently have, and although our recruiting strategies are providing great numbers, I realized I need to make some changes regarding time management. I feel I’m working under pressure trying to deliver results in a timely manner and I don’t want that pressure keeping me from a clear evaluation of candidates. I’ll track my activities to pinpoint where I need to speed things up.”
All organizations will typically highlight the core values of their culture and ask employees to behave accordingly. When doing your self evaluation for your performance review, don’t forget to demonstrate those behaviors that reflect your company culture.
Example as Administrator: “When I first joined the company everyone welcomed me and helped me out adjusting to the new position. That attitude stuck with me and I feel like I collaborate well with my team and we understand each other. I try to go the extra mile working with people from other areas to broaden my company knowledge and I also try to support other colleagues with what I can offer. Doing so helped me create a strong bond with the IT team and now we meet monthly to discuss their needs and ours as well.”
Example as Development: “I focus on delivering high-quality outcomes in every aspect of my work, but I also try to have high-quality relationships with my teammates. I believe it is important to be there for each other and I take pride in being the one my colleagues come to for support when they get stuck on UX practices. I try to keep my knowledge fresh and collaborate with other developers to bring new skills back to the organization.”
Being able to self evaluate can be extremely useful for a performance review, it’s a great opportunity for employees to face their own pros and cons about their performance, it helps with professional development, growth and it shows great courage and accountability. If you’re looking to reach higher levels of performance, grow within the organization and be someone your manager can trust, there’s nothing better than holding yourself accountable and being eager to work on yourself. We hope that these self performance review examples will help you conduct a deep self evaluation of your strengths and areas of improvement so you can skyrocket your professional performance.
Remember that with Hirebook you can skyrocket Performance Management with our OKRs, KPIs, and Meetings features, that’ll take your team to the next level of success!