How To Prepare Your Year End Self-Assessment

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5 years ago

It’s that time of year again! You’re noticing that the air is cooler, the leaves are changing color…and you are preparing for your year-end review! Every year you put in countless hours on the delivery of your work. You exceed expectations on your deliverables time and time again. Yet, when it comes time to write your year end self assessment, you sit in front of your computer with a blank stare.

Since becoming a manager, I have learned a lot about how to write an effective and influential year-end self assessment. It wasn’t until I started writing reviews for my direct reports that I realized what matters (and doesn’t) in an employee’s year end self assessment. The purpose of this post is to provide tips on writing an effective self assessment to support your year end review.

How To Prepare Your Year End Self-Assessment

Before I get started, I want to recognize that year-end reviews can take a variety of formats. I’ve cycled through many in my career, with one employer even using 3 different approaches during my tenure there. That said, they all include some similar basic elements that I suspect are in your self assessments as well.

Typically, there is a list of Objectives (or Accomplishments) that you need to complete within the year. Then there is an overall Summary which addresses how you did the work via competencies or other traits. With those sections in mind, here are my 3 tips….

1. Gather and store data all year long

The hardest challenge (for me) is remembering what to convey at year end. A year is a very long time and it is easy to forget some of the more meaningful experiences earlier in the year. To address that, keep a running list of experiences (both good ones and ones where there were, well, opportunities for development).

In order to keep track of everything, I use my email as a quasi documentation repository. So, if there is something I want to remember, I will typically write an email addressed to myself with just a short blurb like “finished project xyz three days early; sales increased by 5% in the first week.” I keep a separate email folder for these types of records and I file it there. If someone emails me thanking me for something, or commenting that something me or the team did was exceptional, I’ll file it in this email folder as well.

Ok, so how exactly does that help?

So, when I go to write my self assessment, all I have to do is open that folder and look at all the emails that are new since the last time I wrote a self assessment! All the data points I need are there, at my fingertips!

Not only to I track the wins in the email folder, but also the opportunities for improvement (as well as with the concrete steps I have taken to address). So, for example, just this last week, I realized I hadn’t received input from a key stakeholder before I rolled out a final plan for a project. I quickly met with that colleague, took her feedback and updated accordingly. I then went to my email and typed up:

“Missed getting Ava’s input…when I realized the gap, I met with her immediately and identified 2 areas to change. Set up monthly meetings with Ava going forward to ensure ongoing input.”

Not too much information, but just enough so I can remember the necessary nuances when it comes time to write my self assessment.

2. Comment on your Objectives/Accomplishments (including the impact!)

What is important when it comes to your Objectives/Accomplishments is that you completed them during the year with the parameters you were given (i.e., timeline and budget). Even better would be to talk about the impact of the work to the business. Above, I refer to having done something “on time and within budget.” Wouldn’t it be better to add, “and it resulted in 10% increase in market share”!

It is not always intuitive to say what the impact is, here are some examples:

Increase in sales
Increase in customer loyalty
Faster time to market
Reduction in cost
Increase in customer satisfaction

I would encourage you to write a very strong statement indicating you completed the Objective, and a few words about the business impact.

3. Write an Overall Summary of how you completed your Objectives /Accomplishments (i.e., your Competencies/Skills)

Here is where you write an overall summary of your strengths and areas of development that typically relate to how you did your work, often referred to your Competencies. You’d want to think about your teamwork, communication, influencing, etc.

How do I choose between so many Competencies?

When it comes to strengths, to help you decide where to focus, I suggest taking a look at job descriptions for a role you aspire to next. So, if you’d like to become a manager in your department, take a look at the Competencies required for that job and choose 2-3 strengths that you think relate to how you did your work this past year.

Now, I’m not suggesting you lie on your self assessment; it’s simply that it may help you in the future if you frame what you did this year in a way that sets you up for the next role. Why not use the right jargon if it will help?!

(NOTE: if you are aspiring to be in management, I’d also suggest you check out my interview tips in this post: How to prepare for an Interview for a Management Position!)

After you write about your strengths, I suggest choosing 1-2 areas of development. I would be honest here. Self awareness is very important to career progression; no one wants to promote someone who isn’t able or willing to see they may areas of growth.

Really, I should be honest that I made mistakes?

Yes! But also include what you learned and what concrete steps you have taken to address it. So, if you missed a project deadline, you could say something like, “While I missed the project deadline, I have since taken a training on project management and have learned the importance of identifying interdependencies early. I have implemented these learnings in my next project.”

What you are doing here is controlling the narrative about how some of your shortcomings may be perceived. If you are honest about them, quickly transition to what you learned, I think you’ll come through better off. You’re arming your manager with information on how to minimize any lingering perceptions by saying you’ve taken concrete action.

Is that all your advice? Only 3 tips?!

While those are the key 3 steps for Writing a standout Self Assessment, there are a few more general tips that are important to keep in mind:

Keep it short! I wouldn’t write anything more than 1 page. No manager has patience to read pages upon pages; he or she probably has 8-10 reviews to do. Keep it short, and to the point and I think you’ll be more influential
Use bullets and bold/underline key parts. Again, make it easy for your manager. You may feel like you’re spoon feeding him/her all the key information. Yes, you are. And he/she will thank you for it. And you will be better off too!
It doesn’t hurt to compliment your manager. I wouldn’t do anything over the top, but if you’re writing about a strength of yours, you could say, “with the excellent support and guidance of my manager, I was able to ABC…”
If you are concerned about how your year has gone, and think you may get a bad review, you may find this post helpful: How to handle a bad review
Check out this article for additional tips: https://www.saba.com/resources/how-tos/how-to-prepare-for-your-performance-appraisal

How about you? What tips do you have for writing a year end self assessment? If you have any great tips to add below in the Comments!

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