How to Write a Meaningful Self-Appraisal

A self-appraisal, or self-assessment, is often a yearly or quarterly opportunity for you to review your successes and struggles in order to learn and grow from the experiences A self-appraisal is typically a written document or form that is often used to help you focus your career goals. Self-appraisals keep communication open between employers and employees and are beneficial for the growth and development of the organization. A self-appraisal can help to clarify expectations and act as an opportunity for career growth.

Employers in many industries utilize the self-performance review as a form of communication within the organization. Self-evaluations can serve a number of purposes. A self-appraisal can:

• Indicate company dynamics: An open conversation or written self-assessment can show an employer how you see yourself in relation to others within the organization and your contributions to the team as a whole. It can develop employee branding and reveal how well the company’s vision and mission are communicated.
• Reveal misunderstandings: An annual review can surface any disagreements and reveal miscommunications that may have led to issues. Then, employees and management can find ways to remedy the problems.
• Help understand employee motivation: Self-evaluation writing gives employees an opportunity to communicate their internal motivation for working effectively and can help employers understand incentives better.
• Assist employees in reflection: Having time to reflect and review your own work helps you understand yourself more and provides a greater purpose to the job.
• Open communication: A self-reflection allows for some open communication and a clear dynamic which helps your manager see your contributions through your eyes.
• Serve as professional development and career advancement: Knowing your goals can help your manager support your long-term objectives and can even give them the opportunity to teach you and guide you towards career advancement.

A lot of work and thought go into writing your own self-evaluation. Consider your overall strengths and weaknesses and specific moments where you felt accomplished or you excelled.

Here are some steps for how to write your performance review:

1. Reflect on and highlight your accomplishments. This is an opportunity for you to indicate the ways in which you truly excelled and helped those around you and the greater good of the organization. Sometimes managers are not aware of how the individual acts lead to success, so spend time detailing your contributions.
2. Collect data and statistics to show your achievements. In order to substantiate your accomplishments, collect any concrete data in the form of facts and figures to support how you have improved. Show customer survey feedback, reference productivity reports, or indicate how many clients you have acquired.
3. Consider how your goals can be aligned with the company. Indicate your priorities as an employee and describe how those are in agreement with the mission, vision, and overall goals of the company.
4. Identify room for growth. Take an opportunity to show humility and honestly review something that you can improve upon.
5. Set clear and attainable goals. Use your identified challenges as guidance to set some goals for professional growth. Be specific in the goals you set and be sure that they are measurable and reasonable within a set timeframe.
6. Ask for input and support. Take this step to show you can benefit from any support or guidance the company and your manager are willing and able to provide.
7. Request specific tools or guidance. This is a good time to ask for concrete support that your organization can offer. They may be able to send you to conferences to help further your expertise or suggest a certification to advance your career.

When writing an annual self-review be sure to focus on the positive and express areas for growth. Here are a few examples of some effective self-appraisals:

Example 1: Customer service representative

During this, my second year with Dylan’s Diagnostics, I was able to increase overall customer satisfaction as expressed in customer survey feedback from 90% the previous year to 98% this year. I focused on empathizing with the customer and used critical listening skills to help myself understand the customer’s true needs.

Beyond that, I was also able to increase my upselling by 7% when resolving an incoming ticket. I understood our company, products, and services better and was, therefore, more equipped to explain the relevance of certain products and services to our customers.

Although I have been successful in assisting customers and ensuring that their needs are met, I would like to challenge myself more within my career. Looking back, I see many opportunities where I could have been more helpful to my coworkers. I hope to take on more of a leadership role in years to come by enrolling in our leadership training program. I’d like to reduce incoming call times and wait times for our customers while helping our representatives feel more team-oriented. I’m hoping with the training I receive I can lead our company to greater success.

Example 2: Marketing manager

When I came aboard as marketing manager, my promise to the company was to implement a successful online social networking campaign to increase product exposure. By doing so, I was able to increase our profit margin by 30%. With the help of my team, I was able to personalize the online shopping experience for customers and simultaneously gather data on customer needs.

Although successful in meeting our goals, I feel that my team would have been even more successful with some build-in bonding exercises. We were working longer hours and were under stress to meet our deadline I’d like to keep that same standard of excellence in the coming year, but with an element of fun. We need to get to know each other more to trust our professional decisions and have more joy in the process. I aim to influence my team in a positive manner.