Self Evaluation: How to Write a Self Evaluation
Self-evaluation is the best way to monitor your performance at the workplace. It is an opportunity to identify your strengths and weaknesses—also a chance to undertake steps to mitigate the flaws.
Therefore, it is vital to give attention and thought while writing a self-evaluation. With this article, we will try to find answers to questions like:
- What is self-evaluation?
- What role does self-evaluation play in career growth?
- How to write a self-evaluation?
Let’s start with understanding the meaning of self-evaluation.
What Is Self-Evaluation?
It is a process that every employee undertakes during the appraisal or after finishing a project to analyse their performance. It helps in understanding the value added by an employee in an organisation. In addition, evaluating your work helps you focus on your flaws and ways to mitigate them.
Here are some of the reasons why self-evaluation is a powerful tool:
- It helps identify the area of growth by comparing your performance to the company’s general metrics.
- It is a warm-up that prepares you for the performance appraisal.
- It allows you to reflect on your past achievement and demonstrate the same when answering interview questions.
How To Write A Self-Evaluation?
Here are some tips on how to write the best self-evaluation:
Determine who your audience is
The first and most important tip you must remember while writing a self-evaluation is to determine who your audience is. Generally, it would be your manager or someone from senior-level management. After selecting your audience, find answers to questions like:
- What are their expectations from someone in my role?
- How would my work add value to the company?
- How do they evaluate an employee’s performance?
Try to answer these questions through your self-evaluation.
Pro-tip: Highlight your accomplishments to impress your manager and increase your chances of getting an appraisal. This can be the next step you undertake after finding out who your audience is and what are their likes and dislikes. If your audience believes in quantity over quality, give them that or vice-versa.
Be specific and give examples
If you gently mention the job-oriented courses you took after graduation to increase your productivity or learn job-specific skills, it wouldn’t help your audience understand the impact these learning programmes had in shaping your today’s personality. So, be specific about everything you mention in your self-evaluation.
Own your achievement. Write about your efforts to learn a skill, become efficient, or increase productivity. You can state examples of the same while writing a self-evaluation.
Quantify your accomplishments
In most companies, managers and senior-level management prefer quantifying an employee’s performance and accomplishments. So, when writing a self-evaluation that heavily relies on your achievements, don’t forget to mention a backup claim on your contribution and efforts in numbers.
Pro-tip: You can mention all the certification courses you have taken to quantity your accomplishments.
Frame your weaknesses as opportunities
You should be honest about your shortcomings while writing a self-evaluation. It helps the manager monitor your efforts to turn your weaknesses into opportunities.
Moreover, while including your weaknesses in self-evaluation, frame them as opportunities to learn and better yourself.
You can have statements like:
I want to work on my communication skills by upskilling or closely observing you. This is an area I would like to focus on in the coming year.
What Role Does Self-Evaluation Play In Career Growth?
Offers an opportunity to demonstrate your skills and value added to the company
Many professionals don’t get a chance to share their part of the story- their role in achieving the company’s target. That is why self-evaluation is important. It allows them to depict how their contribution impacts the organisation, and share it with their respective managers.
So, don’t leave the opportunity to highlight how you have contributed to the company’s goals.
Note: Don’t forget to mention the invisible skills that have added value to your performance. For example, you might have taken a few digital marketing courses to improve your knowledge.
Makes you self-aware
A conscious and self-aware employee knows their strength and weaknesses, which helps them to identify areas for improvement. It gives them a competitive edge over others and understands how aligned they are to their long-term career objective.
Improves your communication skills
For writing an excellent self-evaluation, you must be a good communicator mainly because clear thoughts can translate into strong words. Therefore, writing self-evaluation constantly makes you a good communicator capable of making mind-stirring conversations at the workplace.
Note: Excellent communication skills provide you with opportunities to stand out from the rest. Moreover, it is the most valued skill among leaders. To impress employers, take an online course to hone your communication skills.
Emeritus India is a pioneer in online education. We have partnered with renowned Indian universities to offer some of the best certification courses for candidates who wish to upskill or reskill.
