What do people say about writing a performance self-appraisal? It feels like bragging. I don’t have anything new to say. I don’t want to expose a weakness that management can hold against me. The self-appraisal doesn’t reflect the real me. Management doesn’t take my self-appraisal seriously. I resent when my self-appraisal is not considered for promotional purposes. Oh, the gripes, squawks, murmurs!
What ridiculous things to say! As if management doesn’t already now about your shortcomings! Besides, if you were passed over for a promotion or a given a lower-than-expected raise, you’d scream, “After all I’ve done for them!” Don’t even think about having not accomplished anything lately; if that’s true, then you deserve to be fired. As for not knowing what to write about or not reflecting the real you, that’s why you’re still reading: to get an approach to writing the self-appraisal. Here are some pointers.
1. Settle into yourself. Start with the mindset that you are not bragging but documenting your performance. Then consider the big advantage you have over your manager in documenting that performance. Your manager might be able see what you’ve done lately, but no one knows your aspirations and intentions as you do. That makes a big difference in knowing how to spin the self-appraisal.
2. Look to the future. Before writing about your accomplishments, which you should have been noting throughout the performance period, think about those aspirations and intentions. Regardless of where and in what capacity you are working, do you want to improve your communication skills? Perform more analysis? Master project management? Move into a supervisory role? Write from that angle.
3. Connect yourself to the business. Next reflect on the organizational mission, core values, and business objectives. Let your language mirror the company’s but push toward your objective. For instance, if you have no intention of increasing your writing workload, don’t dwell so much on how your writing has improved. But if you want to become a team researcher, focus the writing improvement on anything you’ve composed of an analytical nature.
4. Balance the scale. Look to your strengths as opportunities to overcome your weaknesses. If you are a decent writer but fall short as a public speaker, which may be or will be an important job skill, explain how you are committed to writing out presentations just like you would deliver them verbatim as a means of practicing your presentation skills.
5. Highlight the improvements. If you are piggybacking on a previous performance appraisal, show how you’ve refined your strengths and addressed your challenges as described in that report. This commentary is especially critical where performance evaluations are taken seriously.
Other reports in this series:
