How to Write a Self Evaluation

Reflecting on Your Accomplishments

Set aside time. Creating a thorough and useful self-evaluation takes time, so make sure that you schedule enough time to complete the process. If you rush through it, then you’re likely to skip over important accomplishments or growth opportunities, which makes your finished product less productive because it won’t truly reflect your career progress. It can be helpful to create an outline ahead of time.

Review your goals. Your self-evaluation must reflect that you are meeting your self-set goals and the goals of the company at-large. Most importantly, to show your organization that you are an effective employee, you must show that you are working to meet the organizational goals. Completing a self-evaluation will show you if you are on-track to meet your career expectations because you can see if all of the hard work you are doing connects back to your goals. Keep in mind that it's easier to stick to short-term goals that connect clearly to the bigger picture of what you ultimately want in life and who you want to become.

Catalog your accomplishments. Based on your goals, create an inventory of all of the work you’ve done over the past year. Include things like projects you’ve completed, committees you’ve served on, and reports you’ve drafted. This list will include everything - from the client records you stapled to the committee you chaired. Assess your work materials, such as emails and reports, for examples of your work and support for your accomplishments. These can help refresh your memory, and you could even pull quotes from these announcements. As you write down your accomplishments, think about how they fit in with your goals and use that to help with wording. For example, if your goal is to increase sales, and you have been calling potential clients, then you could say that you “initiated sales” or “increased point-of-sale opportunities” rather than “made cold calls."

Keep the focus on you. Because this is a self evaluation, include only your accomplishments, not those of your entire team. Demonstrate how you contributed to any team assignments, including your qualities as a team player. Think about what is working well, and get as clear and concrete as you can about it.

Explain your struggles. Every worker has weaknesses, and honestly identifying them is the only way to overcome them. You must reflect on your struggles in order to set new goals and choose useful growth opportunities. Think about times you’ve fallen behind in your work, needed assistance, or were unsure that you completed a task correctly. Provide examples. Just as with your successes, include concrete examples to support your need for professional growth opportunities. If you’re struggling to identify your weaknesses, talk to a trusted colleague, a mentor, or your supervisor before the evaluation. This will give you time to work on your weaknesses and demonstrate your progress in the evaluation.

Explain your growth initiatives. Record your professional development activities from the previous year, connecting them to your goals and prior weaknesses. Show how you’ve been successful at overcoming your struggles and how hard you’ve worked to become the type of employee your organization wants. Include professional growth activities you’ve completed in your own time as well as those you did as part of your job.

Assemble your feedback. The feedback that you have received over the past year will be instrumental in supporting your accomplishments and helping your identify areas for development. Remember to include feedback from your supervisor, colleagues, and clients, if it’s available.

Differentiate yourself. Show your organization the unique qualities that you bring to the table. For example, do you have a varied educational background or are you bilingual? Include these traits in your self-evaluation to show your organization how you are contributing to the company culture. What makes you different as an employee? Ask yourself what characteristics you bring to the job that go beyond the job description. Since this evaluation is focused on your performance, incorporate details that demonstrate how you contribute as an individual. Note how your efforts have helped your team achieve or surpass company goals, if applicable.

Backing Up Your Statements With Evidence

Support your accomplishments. Work through your list of accomplishments and develop a list of the work you performed as part of that accomplishment. Once you have an overview of the work you completed, write a brief explanation using action verbs. Action verbs show what you did in concrete terms. For example, state that you evaluated survey results, trained a new hire, or initiated a new project. Be honest. While you want to word your accomplishments in a way that reflects well on you, make sure that you are being accurate. For example, don’t record your independent work as managerial experience because you managed yourself.

Quantify your results. Support your accomplishments with quantifiable examples, such as statistics, percentages, or calculated totals. As an example, say, “I increased my customers by 20%” or “I lowered bug reports by 15%.” You can also use straight calculations, such as “I completed 5 surveys” or “I averaged 4 customers per day.”

Provide qualitative data. Prepare a list of qualitative examples to support your accomplishments, especially in areas you were unable to provide numbers. Qualitative examples show that you took actions but are unable to show numerical data. For example, say, “I increased customer support by creating a new web app.” Qualitative examples are great support when taking an action is meaningful, regardless of its success. For example, if you are in charge of a program to prevent teen drinking, any action you take is useful, even if you only stop one teen from drinking.

Incorporate your feedback. Link your positive feedback to your accomplishments to show that others have observed your successes in the workplace. Only include feedback that clearly supports an accomplishment so that your self-evaluation will be accurate and useful.

Setting New Professional Goals

Review the results. Read over your self-evaluation, paying careful attention to how well you accomplished your previous year’s goals and the organizational goals. Identify gaps where more improvement is needed. Then study the struggles you identified, which will show you areas you need to improve.

Set your initial new goals. Based on your identified gaps and struggles, develop new professional goals for the upcoming year. Aim for two new goals, and remember that you will continue to work toward your organization's goals. As you set your goals, remember that you'll need to show support for your accomplishment of the goals and that you will need to be able to take growth initiatives. Write your goals in a way that allows for you to meet those demands. Avoid setting lofty goals that will be difficult to achieve. Choose goals that you will be able to meet by the next review or evaluation.

Discuss your self-evaluation. Schedule a meeting with your supervisor to review your results. Be prepared to explain the information you’ve included. Show them your initial new goals, and explain why you’ve chosen this focus for the upcoming year.

Ask for feedback. Once your supervisor has reviewed the results of your self-evaluation, ask for areas of improvement and areas where you’ve demonstrated success. Ask them what they think of your initial new goals, and allow them to help you reshape those goals.

Suggest professional growth initiatives. Discuss your previous struggles with your supervisor, and offer your ideas for the coming year’s professional growth. Listen to your supervisor’s suggestions and be open to pursuing their ideas. Show them that you are addressing your weaknesses and pursuing success.

Finalize your new goals. Based on the feedback you received from your supervisor, finalize your new goals and update your self-evaluation to reflect the changes. Be sure to keep a copy of the evaluation so you can refer back to it as needed.