Self Evaluation Examples: How to Write Your Own

A self evaluation is not a brag sheet, and it is not a confession. It is the written case you make about your own year before a performance review: which goals you hit, how anyone can check it, where you fell short, and what you want next. Your manager puts their assessment next to yours, and the review is about the gaps between the two. Strong self evaluation examples share one feature: every sentence carries a number, a date, or a name.

Three tools do most of the work: five parts that belong in every self assessment, a sentence formula that turns impressions into proof, and example lines you can adapt. Danielle, 31, is a customer success manager at a 300-person HR software company in Columbus, Ohio, and she looks after 48 mid-market accounts. Her annual review with Kevin, the head of customer success, is in December, and the form arrives two weeks earlier. Her first draft had four sentences. Her second had five numbers, and it changed the meeting.

What a self evaluation is, and what it is not

A self evaluation, also called a self assessment or self appraisal, is the part of the performance review you prepare before anyone else says anything about you. Most companies use a form with open questions and a rating scale. Whoever comes prepared answers with proof. Whoever does not answers with adjectives.

Next to your view sits your manager's view. Both are incomplete. You know the effort and the fires that never reached anyone's desk. Your manager knows the effect your work had on others. That means: your self evaluation is not there to win the argument. It is there to complete the second picture. Where the two agree, one sentence is enough. Where they differ, the real conversation starts.

What it is not is just as clear. It is not a job description, because your manager already knows what your role involves. And it is not a place for self-criticism without a way out. A gap belongs in it, but only with its cause and the next step. The table separates it from the formats it gets confused with.

Why most self evaluations undersell the year

Modesty is a good trait. On a team it makes you easy to work with, and in a conflict it makes you credible. In a self evaluation it is built for something else. It leaves your manager guessing, and anyone who guesses falls back on the most recent impression.

Danielle's first draft read: “I managed my accounts reliably this year. I worked well with the team. I didn't get to all of my QBRs. I'd like to keep growing in my role.” Four sentences, none of them wrong. And none that Kevin could not have written without her. What was he supposed to do with that in the meeting?

What is missing are facts only Danielle knows. Her book of business ended the year at 108 percent net revenue retention against a goal of 105. In August a billing error double-charged 17 of her accounts. She called all of them within 48 hours, and none left. And she wants to lead the new enterprise pod that opens next summer. Kevin remembers August as a messy month, not the 48 hours.

In a 1988 meta-analysis, Michael Harris and John Schaubroeck found that self ratings and supervisor ratings agree only moderately, and that people tend to rate themselves somewhat higher. The gap does not close with quieter sentences. It closes with checkable ones. Your manager can verify a number. An adjective can only be believed or doubted.

That means: quiet is not the same as honest. Anyone who leaves out their wins distorts the picture as much as someone who inflates them.

What to include in a self assessment: five parts

Five parts cover every self evaluation, whatever your company's form looks like. Whoever knows the five can fill in any form and handle a review without one. The third column shows Danielle's entries.

The second part is the one most people leave blank. What was never planned is the easiest to forget. For Danielle it is the most important line on the form. A goal she hit shows she is reliable. The August incident shows what she does when nobody has a plan.

Most people dread the third part. Whoever names a gap first sets the tone in which it gets discussed. Whoever leaves it out hears about it from the other side of the table, as an accusation instead of a finding.

The fourth part needs one concrete request. The fifth is where you tell your manager where you want to go, before next year's goals are handed out. One growth goal is enough, and no more than three goals for the year in total. Why three goals are enough explains the ceiling.

How to write your self-performance evaluation in five steps

A self evaluation is not written in one evening from memory. Memory is built for something else: it keeps the last eight weeks and the loudest crisis of the year. The five steps below bring the rest back, and Danielle needed two evenings of 45 minutes each.

1. 01

   Collect proof, 30 minutes

   Open last year's review notes, your calendar, and your sent folder. Look for numbers on every goal and thank-you notes from customers and colleagues. Danielle found four emails from customers who thanked her for calling in August.

2. 02

   Compare goals, 15 minutes

   One line per goal: what was agreed, what was reached, how big the gap is. No judgment yet, just target and actual. Whoever starts judging here talks the year up or down before the numbers are on the table.

3. 03

   Apply the sentence formula, 25 minutes

   Every statement about a strength follows result, proof, impact. Every statement about a gap follows gap, cause, next step.

4. 04

   Choose your ratings, ten minutes

   Rate yourself only now, after the proof. The rating has to match the sentence next to it. Anyone who writes 108 percent against a goal of 105 and then ticks meets expectations contradicts themselves.

5. 05

   Write the ask, ten minutes

   End with one growth goal, a timeframe, and what you need for it. Not: I'd like to keep growing. Instead: I want to lead the enterprise pod from Q3 and need a management course in Q1 to get there. The [SMART goals examples](/en/smart-goals-examples) show how to build sentences like that.

The sentence formula: result, proof, impact

Result is what exists at the end. Proof is how anyone can see it. Impact is what it meant for the business. For Danielle it reads: “I grew my book of business to 108 percent net revenue retention against a goal of 105. The accounts started the year at $2.4 million in annual recurring revenue and ended it at $2.59 million. That is $192,000 in net expansion.” Three sentences, and Kevin has no follow-up questions.

Does the sentence with $192,000 feel uncomfortable? It sounds like bragging. But a number is not praise. It is information. The praise would be the adjective in front of it, and the formula leaves it out. Whoever states the number and drops the adjective leaves the judgment to the manager and still hands over everything the judgment needs.

Gaps use the same structure with different parts. Gap is what is missing, as a number. Cause is the reason, without excuses. Next step is what you will do differently from January. For Danielle: “I held 41 of 60 planned QBRs with my top 15 accounts. The August incident and eight weeks of covering a colleague's book took the time. All 60 for next year are already on the calendar.” Anyone who writes a gap this way takes the sting out of the criticism and turns it into a plan.

Ad

Prosp

Prosp · LinkedIn outreach

3 interested buyers in 30 days, or 3 months freeLinkedIn messages so personal, prospects actually replyYour campaign goes live within 48 hours

Try for free→

New reply

Hi Anna, your post on remote sales got me curious.

Sounds interesting. Does Thursday work?

Self evaluation examples: twelve before and after rewrites

The twelve examples below follow the competencies a typical performance review template asks about, from goal achievement to areas for improvement. Left is how most people write, right is how Danielle wrote. Borrow the structure, not the sentences, and put in your own numbers, names, and dates.

Notice what the right column has in common? Every line carries a number, a date, or a name. None contains an adjective that praises itself. That means: the lines on the right are not louder than the ones on the left. They are easier to check. Whoever writes in checkable sentences only has to explain in the review, not persuade.

Self assessment examples for work without hard numbers

Not every job comes with revenue figures. Whoever works in teaching, nursing, or administration still finds numbers: colleagues trained, response times, shifts covered, complaints that stopped coming. Where there is no number, a name and a date do the job. A date turns an impression into an event. Three examples:

• Teacher: “In October I split my seventh-grade reading groups from three levels into five. By March, 19 of my 26 students had moved up at least one level.”
• Nurse: “From October to December I precepted two new graduate nurses on our unit. Both now carry a full patient load.”
• Office administrator: “In February I rebuilt the supply ordering sheet. We have not run out of anything since.”

Self appraisal comments by employees: six examples

Many forms end with a free text box for employee self evaluation comments. A strong self appraisal comment does one of three things: it names your biggest contribution, it names your biggest gap with its fix, or it names what you need next. Six examples, two of each kind:

• Biggest contribution: “The work I am proudest of this year was in no goal. When the billing error hit 17 of my accounts in August, I called every one within 48 hours, and all 17 renewed.”
• Biggest contribution: “My onboarding playbook is now the team standard. Eleven accounts went live in 30 days instead of 45.”
• Gap with a fix: “I held 41 of 60 QBRs. In August I chose the incident over the calendar, and I would make that choice again. Next year's 60 are already scheduled.”
• Gap with a fix: “Three accounts churned against a goal of two. One was acquired by a company on a competing platform. The other two showed warning signs in their usage data that I now check every month.”
• What I need next: “I want to lead the enterprise pod from Q3. To get there, I am asking for a management course in Q1 and the chance to mentor the two new hires.”
• What I need next: “I would like earlier notice from the product team when a release changes billing. One week of warning would have saved most of August.”

Whoever writes the comment box last writes the best one. By then the proof is collected, and the comment only has to choose.

Employee self evaluation examples by rating: how to score yourself

Most forms come with a five-point scale, from exceeds to does not meet expectations. When employees rate themselves, many tick the middle box everywhere. It feels modest and safe. It also says nothing, because anyone who picks the same box for every goal is not describing the year.

The opposite habit is just as common. Marshall Goldsmith reports in What Got You Here Won't Get You There, from 2007, that when he asks successful professionals to rank themselves against their peers, the large majority place themselves in the top fifth. Whoever rates every line at the top forces the manager to negotiate each one down, and the review turns into a haggle.

So the rule for the scale is simple: rate what your proof supports, not what your gut says. Where you beat the goal, you may tick exceeds. Where you missed it, tick partially meets and add the cause. Danielle filled in her form like this:

• Net revenue retention: exceeds expectations, 108 percent against 105.
• Churn: partially meets, three accounts against a goal of two, one lost to an acquisition.
• Onboarding playbook: meets expectations, live since May, 30 days instead of 45.
• QBR coverage: partially meets, 41 of 60, all of next year's already scheduled.

Two partials look worse on paper than four meets. In the meeting they are stronger. Kevin sees that Danielle found the gaps herself. That means: an honest scale may cost you one box on the form. In return you get the trust that your top ratings are accurate too.

And if your manager rates you differently? Ask for the evidence, not the score. What are you basing that on? Whoever asks about the event instead of the rating turns an argument about boxes into a conversation about what happened.

The three mistakes nobody notices

Most self evaluations do not fail because of bad wording. They fail because of three mistakes that feel right while you write and only show up in the meeting. Which one is yours?

• The eight-week memory. Whoever writes the self evaluation in November from memory describes the fall. The win in February is forgotten, and the slip in October sits on top.
• The hidden gap. You leave out what did not work and hope nobody brings it up. Then the gap comes from the other side, without a cause or a plan, and you defend instead of explain.
• The ask without a date. I'd like to keep growing, I'm open to more responsibility. An ask without a timeframe and a need cannot be approved. It can only be noted.

From self evaluation to next year's goals: year, quarter, month, week, day

A self evaluation is feedback that arrives once a year. Edwin Locke and Gary Latham showed in A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance, from 1990, that specific, challenging goals lead to higher performance than being told to do your best, and that feedback on progress strengthens the effect. Whoever looks at a goal only in December gets that feedback too late. The fix is feedback in the week it matters, and the guide on how to give feedback to employees shows what that looks like.

Your self evaluation is the best place to propose next year's goals. For the wording, the employee goals examples show a sentence pattern you can reuse. Four examples of personal performance goals, built the way Danielle built hers:

• Lead the enterprise pod from Q3, with the management course finished by the end of Q1.
• Hold all 60 QBRs with my top 15 accounts, 15 per quarter.
• Keep net revenue retention at or above 107 percent on a book of $2.6 million.
• Bring churned accounts down to two or fewer by checking usage data for all 48 accounts every month.

Danielle's growth goal is the first one. She translates it into five levels. The third column shows which piece of proof each level produces for next year's self evaluation.

The week is the most important link in the chain. Every Friday Danielle spends ten minutes logging two pieces of proof: what got done, as a number, and what moved, with a date. The ten-minute weekly review shows how to set that up. Anyone who does this for 45 weeks has about 90 entries by December, and next year's self evaluation gets assembled from the list.

Gaapp is built around exactly this chain: a yearly goal at the top, then quarter, month, week, and day, with progress on each level rolling up. You see in June whether Q3 is still realistic. How a yearly goal turns into a path with milestones is covered in how to achieve goals.

Three questions before you hit submit:

• Does every goal on your form have a number your manager can check?
• Have you named at least one gap yourself, with its cause and the next step?
• Does your form end with an ask that has a date and a need?

Anyone who answers no to one of them has not written too modestly, but too vaguely. Danielle's second draft cut 20 minutes from her review, and the time went to the enterprise pod. In short: a self evaluation is not a verdict on you. It is the best briefing your manager will get all year.

Questions about self evaluations