Conducting an effective Self-assessment and self-evaluation

A critical piece of Performance Appraisal

Self Assessment

Continuing from my last post (link here), where I was discussing a slightly different approach of Performance Appraisal (we have adopted), the first stage is self-assessment.

Understanding of role and job

The first step to performance evaluation is understanding what is expected of the role. One needs to have a clear description of the expectations of the job. So before we proceed with doing the self-evaluation, we should clearly understand the same. Typically this activity should be carried out at periodic intervals starting right when you joined the company and perhaps re-looking at it every 6 months in case anything changed or to make sure we are not missing out on any key expectations from the role.

Generally, when you join a project this is also sort of translated in terms of expectation settings done by your reporting Manager. However, it could be a little too specific and a subset of the expectations from the role. We need to understand one thing here, the organization is a living entity. The roles, expectations, job descriptions are not carved in stone, they are living entity, they change, they get updated, they get revised.

Self Evaluation

This is a key part of performance appraisal, which I believe is about tracking how have you performed and proving the worth.

While doing self-evaluation we have to be honest with ourselves. The core idea is neither to underplay yourself nor to embellish.

Self-evaluation is not what you perceive about you, what you think you may be capable of. It’s about what you did, what you achieved, and what you actually delivered in real.

Self-evaluation is about the ability to see yourself without any bias. The key to individual growth is also refraining from the distorted view of self.

Some of the tips (from my experience) to do effective self-evaluation are here:

1. Be crisp. While listing your accomplishments, try to be brief. Longer stories deviate from actual points and may tend to become boastful (un-wantedly). Somebody always has some reference on your work.
2. It’’s about you. Self-evaluation is about you, what was your role in the team’s overall achievement. This is one place, where you have to talk for yourself and not on behalf of the team. What was your contribution? What did you do? What part you played? So a usage of “I” should be encouraged.
3. Facts/Solutions. Talk about the examples where some of the quality are displayed. How you brought a change? What you did differently? How you enhanced yourself to solve a specific problem?
4. Weakness.There is always a doubt of should I write my weakness. Can I disclose it? Would it be used against me? Would it be counted as a failure? Those are traditional times or traditional set up when people hold on to your weakness to play you down in an appraisal. The ability to identify your weakness and see it through is a sign of maturity and should be respected. A large part of this would form the basis of self-enhancement (the last phase of appraisal).

An organisation has more responsibility towards growing an individual and up-skilling them but what it needs from the individual is the awareness about their own strength and weakness.

Happy Reading!

Nishant.