How to Use Self-Evaluation Answers Samples to Prepare for An Employee Self-Evaluation

If you’ve never completed a self-evaluation before, reading through some self-evaluation answers samples can help you brainstorm different ways to think critically about your performance on the job. It can be an eye-opening experience to essentially critique your performance and present your findings to your boss or management team. Hopefully, it’s also a humbling learning experience that makes you a better employee for your workplace.

Why Self Evaluation is Important

Self-assessments are an important part of good management strategies in successful organizations. They allow employees to view their performances objectively and assess themselves from the outside looking in. Through self-assessment, employees can take inventory of their strengths and weaknesses and come up with strategies for improvement when necessary. Employee self-evaluations also help managers by giving them an employee’s review from that employee’s perspective. Being able to learn about how an employee sees their performance and how they fit into a role can help managers leverage that perspective for the good of the team, optimizing the employee’s self-assessed strengths, and allowing them to repair or improve upon their weaknesses.

 

What Should Be Included in a Self-Evaluation?

The exact structure of self-evaluations will vary by organization, and might even vary by the management team, but most will include a questionnaire of sorts to guide you through your performance assessment. Some common themes can include achievements, productivity, time management, and professional communication. Your employer could also ask you for more of a free-form self-assessment by simply asking you to summarize your performance in a report you write yourself from start to finish.

The information you choose to include is entirely up to you, and you can even read some self-evaluation answers samples to get a feel for how other people talk about their performances. Your intention wouldn’t be to copy the sample answers, but you could at least get a feel for the verbiage you could possibly use to describe your performance.

How to Write Your Self-Evaluation 

If you know you have an upcoming self-evaluation at work, you may want to take some time to review some self-evaluation answers samples to get a feel for how to write about different strengths or weaknesses that could apply to you. Before you start, make sure you have a clear understanding of what your employer is looking for and tailor your answers accordingly. Is the self-evaluation meant to be comprehensive and include the entire time you’ve been with the organization, or is the management team looking at a specific length of time? Are they looking for an assessment of overall performance or are they hoping to evaluate a specific project? Knowing these details can help you make sure you’re giving them the information they want.

Following is a list of self-evaluation strategies, including some self-evaluation answers samples to help you get a feel for how this method of performance review normally works.

1: Always Be Honest, But Don’t Be Afraid to be Proud

Honesty is always the best policy, especially when completing a self-evaluation. Your employer is going to know if you fabricate elements of your typical performance on the job or embellish your level of involvement in team successes to make yourself look better. They will catch on when your self-assessment doesn’t add up to peer reviews or other assessments done within the organization.

At the same time, if you’re doing a good job at work and you honestly know it, include those details in your self-evaluation. There is nothing shameful about having enthusiasm for your success or a diligent work ethic. It’s an empowering thing to say you’re good at your job. Chances are that management is already aware of your ability to perform well at work, and when you openly take inventory of that performance, it will confirm to your employer that you are happy, effective, and enthusiastic in your role.

2: It’s Okay to Point Out Your Weaknesses

Being honest about your strengths is typically easy, and most people err on the side of modesty when it comes to self-praise. Giving ourselves criticism, on the other hand, can be an uncomfortable pill to swallow. However, you do have control over whether your weaknesses will be seen as weaknesses by being intentional with how you explain them in your self-evaluation.

Think of your weaknesses as opportunities for improvement and write about them accordingly. A self-evaluation answer sample would be to take a self-identified weakness such as, “I struggle with active listening during team meetings because I have a short attention span when I’m bored,” and instead write, “I’ve recognized room for improvement with my active listening skills. I’ve been taking the initiative to review the topics listed for discussion before meetings so that I can come prepared with questions. Also, on my way into work each day, I’ve been listening to podcasts about being a better active listener and improving workplace communication.”

You can see how the first, more negative answer, seems to say, “This is the way I am,” while the more positive rephrase takes the approach of identifying specific action steps that can be or are being taken to improve upon this specific shortcoming.

3: Quantify Your Performance Accomplishments

Any time you can write about your achievements using specific facts or numbers, you should include that in your self-evaluation. For example, one self-evaluation answer sample for a nurse in a hospital emergency department would be to write about the number of emergency patients you have helped treat and the outcomes of the emergency care you were able to give them. This is quantifiable in that your employee identifier will appear in the notes in the patients’ treatment plans and can be backed up additionally by doctors or other staff members who were working with you on those cases.

Another self-evaluation answer sample would be for a sales consultant to write about how many new clients they’ve added to the business’s customer base and the exact figures of profits brought in through those specific clients. Again, it’s quantifiable and able to be verified by notes made on company interactions with those clients. Additionally, those clients would probably write you a glowing recommendation should your employer ask for feedback.

4: Talk About How Your Core Values Add to the Team

In addition to professional skills and knowledge, an employee’s core values can influence their performance on the job and their ultimate success as a part of an organization. Core values are a bit harder to gain insight on from self-evaluation answers samples because they are much more personal than most other topics included in self-assessments. In other words, your core values are more “from the heart” and have more to do with your character as a person, which varies greatly between individuals. However, they are still worth noting in your self-evaluation, especially for instances you believe your core values made a difference.

A great example would be to mention how your affinity for teamwork helped you delegate tasks in a group project so that all coworkers could contribute equal effort to the project. You could also mention how your appreciation for transparency led to more effective communication about a challenging problem the team was faced with.

5: Communicate the Goals You Have Set for Yourself Within the Company

One way to show your employer you are thinking of the future of the company is to set goals within your position that you believe will be beneficial to the company if you achieve them. A self-evaluation answer sample would include setting a goal to take some courses on leadership and team management so that you can help new team members effectively integrate into the organization and help them find success going forward. When your upper management reads about this in your self-evaluation answers, it will plant the seed that you are forward-thinking and are potentially open to any leadership roles in the future.

6: Talk About Improvements You Would Like to See

Your self-evaluation answers are also a good place to communicate changes or improvements you think would help the team or the business overall. This will help to give your manager or employer some feedback from their employees and could ultimately lead to the implementation of positive changes within the workplace. It will showcase your ability to think critically about your organization and brainstorm improvements that could positively affect all team members.

A self-evaluation answer sample in this situation would be to suggest more frequent team meetings to keep everyone on the same page throughout the duration of a project. If your office environment includes an open floorplan that makes it a little too easy to socialize with team members, you could suggest mandatory periods of quiet time to enhance individual productivity for those whose performance thrives with the ability to focus. These are the types of feedback that management loves to hear because implementing these suggestions would only lead to increased productivity and more effective work performances.

Help Prepare for Your Self-Assessment with Self-Evaluation Answers Samples

Are you still feeling a little lost as your self-evaluation approaches? There are so many self-evaluation answers samples published online that you can study to learn how to talk about your own performance in the workplace. Whether that self-generated feedback is positive or negative, it can be communicated to your management team in a way that does you justice as a hard-working employee. It just takes the right mindset and the right verbiage to communicate your best, and even your worst, qualities effectively. Self-evaluation gives the employee the ability to take ownership of their performance in the workplace, good and bad, and gives them positive self-recognition while also inspiring them to make necessary improvements for the good of their organization.

The eLeaP continuous performance management system provides organizations with powerful options to attract and retain high caliber team members.