Writing Self Appraisal|How to write self appraisal to best advantage.

Writing self appraisal to your maximum benefit is crucial in today's job market where we all need to be more proactive in getting ahead. How to write self appraisal to one’s best advantage is, therefore, a vital lesson every employee should learn, to showcase his undistorted abilities to his employer to derive utmost advantage during consideration for a job promotion. Here in this article I am going to share few important tips on writing self appraisal report in order to get maximum advantage from your employer.

It is generally seen that most of you sit on your annual self appraisal forms delivered to your address till its last date of submission to your employers. Then you suddenly scurry to fill it someway, even by copying from other colleagues, just to get over it as an annual formality. This is not the right way to see it or to take it as a mere year-end formality. It is a great way to advance your career goals. If you want to be successful in your career progression, you must know the art of writing self appraisal to your advantage or otherwise you will be passed over for a job promotion. Writing self appraisal is an essential part of the performance appraisal system of your company where you give your comments and views on points about your own performance. This is usually done by rating yourself on various parameters and writing about your major strengths and weaknesses, with the help of an appraisal form supplied by your employers. During my long professional career, I have gone through several of such appraisal forms and here are my few vital tips on how to write self appraisal report so that you can derive maximum benefit out of it to make the most of your abilities as well as your opportunities.

Start making a case for promotion.

Most companies have their policies regarding the time lines for giving promotions to their employees. They usually decide on the number and even the persons they want to promote a couple of months before the actual date of performance review. If you, therefore, wish to be considered for promotion during the specified time window you should start talking about it to your manager a couple of months beforehand without waiting for the performance review to be completed, as otherwise you may miss the opportunity and may have to wait till the next time slot. It is, therefore, essential that your case is presented appropriately to your boss through your self performance appraisal report before he starts performance appraisals of his team members. It is therefore, imperative that you know the techniques of writing self appraisal to your best advantage so that your boss is kept informed about your achievements and aspirations to move up.

Keep a diary of service records.

Keep records of your achievements and successes in your work areas over the year and highlight and mention them in your self appraisal form. Such successes may include customer appreciations for attending to their problems, boss’s appreciation for achieving targets, praise for suggesting any innovative ideas in some area etc. List out your output along with the feed back you have received from customers and seniors. You should keep records of these achievements which would help to put up well thought-out arguments while writing your self appraisal report.

Make it concise and factual.

Knowing how to write self appraisal report properly is vital because it goes to strengthen the opinions your boss and others have already about you. All your statements in the self appraisal report should be backed up with facts. Avoid writing long sentences and exaggeration like ‘I am a loyal worker and can make any sacrifice for the company’ etc. You need to remember that you are being assessed by your boss every day and your appraisal form is only a tool to remind him of any of your mentionable points which he may miss out during the appraisal process. It is a good idea to describe the areas of your strength, growth and those that need improvement and or development.

. Asking for a salary rise.

Another important tip on writing self appraisal report is that you need to keep in mind not to write any figure for salary expectation in the appraisal form while asking for a salary rise. If your expectation is too high you may be seen as over-ambitious by your boss, which may even deprive you from a possible promotion. On the other hand, a too low expectation may lead your boss to think about you that you are not qualified enough for the job. Before going for any negotiation for pay rise with your boss the first thing you should do is to check your true value in the industry. There are several websites which would give you an idea about the realistic salary range you can expect as per the market, based on your position and experience.

Company’s expectations from its employee.

In connection with writing your self appraisal report the three main things that the company expects from you are,

Proper attitude: This may be like offering your service to the company to carry out extra bit of work whenever necessary which others may avoid or to volunteer to stay long hours for the work if required;

Output: Your work out put with reference to the ‘measured target’ worked out with your boss;

Loyalty: The longer you stay with your company and remain truly engaged, higher is the chance of your promotion;

Conclusion

Basically, your self-appraisal report is a tool to help your boss to write his final assessment about you and to create the opportunity for an open discussion about success in your role. However, one important point needs to be made clear that although knowing the art of writing self appraisal report is a crucial tool to help you in your endeavor to succeed in your career progression, the tips suggested in this post on 'how to write self appraisal to your best advantage' can not only take you to your career goal. It is an established fact that there is no substitute for hard and intelligent work on a consistent basis for achieving real success in your career.