It’s performance review season—cue the deep sigh. But writing your self-assessment doesn’t have to be painful. This post shares quick, strategic tips to help you reflect on your impact, align with company goals, and make it easier for your manager to champion your work.
Performance reviews: the annual tradition that sparks equal parts reflection and sometimes a bit of dread. We all know the drill—those end-of-year conversations where your manager walks through your highlight reel (or the moments that didn’t quite go as planned) from the past twelve months. As daunting as they can feel, they’re a key part of your career growth—and showing up prepared can make a big difference.
Enter the self-assessment. Yes, the thing we all tend to procrastinate on until the last possible moment. What is a self assessment? Simply put, it’s an employee’s personal reflection on their performance over a set period. It’s meant to highlight key accomplishments, progress toward goals, and areas for development. Often used in performance reviews, it helps ensure managers have a clear, well-rounded view of an individual’s contributions.
When done well, a self-assessment gives your manager a well-rounded view of your contributions—and sets the stage for a more meaningful conversation.
Most companies ask you to complete this reflection in advance of your formal review. While it can be tempting to list EVERY single thing you’ve done over the past year, the real key is to focus on what added value for the company, especially the work that ties directly to your organizations goals, objectives, and team initiatives.
Tips for A Quality Self-Assessment
First, reference your organizations top objectives. Document the top 3-5 areas where you contributed to meeting or exceeding them. This is your moment to connect the dots between your efforts and what the business actually cares about.
Mapping your impact to company priorities helps your manager not only understand your value but it makes it easier for them to advocate for you when it comes time to determine merit if your company has budget for that.
When working for someone new, it’s a good practice to ask them in advance if they have any preferences for receiving your self assessment input. Based on my personal experience (both submitting self assessments and receiving them), most managers are beyond thrilled when they get a clear, well-written assessment with supporting metrics that align with team and organizational goals. If you send a 10-page list of every task you completed, don’t be surprised if they ask you to try again. Stick to what moves the needle.
“You can’t improve what you don’t measure.” — Peter Drucker
Pro Tip: Stash Your Wins
Writing a self-assessment about the whole year in one sitting can feel overwhelming. For those who struggle with Impostor Syndrome, it can be especially difficult to talk about all the awesome things you accomplished, true as they may be. My advice is to build in time once a quarter or even every month to reflect and write down your wins. Doing this in small increments will make it much easier to round up your most significant accomplishments when it comes time to pull the assessment together.
I always encourage my team to save any and all kudo notes they receive throughout the year and include the relevant comments in the review. It not only acts as “social proof” of you value but your manager might not know about that praise unless you shared it. Many companies offer a feedback tool that are initiated by the employee but I find those aren’t as valuable as unsolicited comments that came in without prompting. You’ll thank yourself later when review season rolls around and you’ve already got the highlights ready to go.
Bonus Points: Bring those wins and kudo notes to quarterly check-ins with your manager. It helps ensure you’re aligned on expectations and gives you a chance to adjust before the year is over. A good year-end review in my mind is one where there are no surprises. Instead of hoping or assuming you are meeting your managers expectations, dedicate time once a quarter to verify. That will save a lot of stress leading up to the year-end review period!
Additional Articles I recommend:
Forbes: Making Your Performance Review Work For You: A Guide For Employees
The Muse: How to Write a Self-performance Review (Plus 8 Examples!)
Remember: the self-assessment is your opportunity to tell the story of your impact. Make it strategic, make it aligned, and make it easy for your manager to see how you’ve helped move the business forward. Stay tuned for an upcoming post where I will be sharing a template to use for writing self assessments along with tips for managers on how to write meaningful reviews.
Thanks for reading and sharing! xx
