Rating yourself for a performance review

[workaholic?]

Does anyone else think this is a lose-lose situation? For example, on my performance review i have to give myself a rating of 1 (exceeds expectations), 2+, 2, 2- (fully meets expectations), or 3 (falls short of expectations). If you give yourself a 1, I feel like you're setting yourself for an explanation of what a 1 looks like...supervisor going, wow she thinks highly of herself. If you give yourself a 2 and they think you should be a 1, they think well we thought she was a 1, but she may know more about herself than we do; maybe she's not as good as we thought.

I just feel like you can't really win and i'm not sure what the purpose of having to rate ourselves is before our evaluation.

Anybody have insight?

[sparky88]

This reminds me of those occasional times where a teacher would say "give yourself the grade you deserve for this class". Then, that gets factored in with the rest of your scores, etc, to come up with the final grade. I always hated that.

I don't know what to tell you, eek.

[CityGal]

The evaluation system to me is the same situation as when you are applying for a job that the interviewer asks you to tell them your weakest qualites. Of course, you don't give them the negative qualities and instead you boost yourself up some more.

My point system goes from 1-5 (five being the highest) and I tend to give myself a handful of 4s, 4.5s, and a few 5s. I never go below a four. Also, I see this point system as a confidence test in which your confidence in yourself and performance shines through. If you give yourself low numbers, the high power ones may not appreciate it...maybe even the same vice versa....although I tend to not just give myself all fives for this reason.

[cache]

I've never felt uncomfortable when I have to do that, because if/when I give myself the highest mark, I can fully explain and justify it, and would demand an explanation from my boss if she did not grade me the same...

[mishl982]

I'm glad that when I have to do my own performance review, it doesn't involve grading. It just shows what goals I made last year and how I met or exceeded them.

However you decide to grade yourself, if you're going to put "meets expectations" or "exceeds expectations" make sure you have something to back that up. You could put other things accomplished, how you did things above and beyond, etc.

[PenforPrez]

When I worked at Wal-Mart, we were asked at performance reviews to come up with what we thought we were doing right, and what we could improve, and write down some goals. I always found that easy; I'm constantly in self-analysis.

Paul

[workaholic?]

I'm glad that when I have to do my own performance review, it doesn't involve grading. It just shows what goals I made last year and how I met or exceeded them.

However you decide to grade yourself, if you're going to put "meets expectations" or "exceeds expectations" make sure you have something to back that up. You could put other things accomplished, how you did things above and beyond, etc.

Well our evaluation form isn't just going down a list checking a box for a rating. We fill out a whole form at the beginning of each year of our goals and expectations. Then midyear we go through that and evaluate how we're doing so far. At the end of the year, you go through all those goals and list basically everything you did this year and how that met your original objectives. This goes through everything including our safety goals and metrics, our project management, maintained reliabilities, cost reduction, professional development, and diversity actions. At the bottom of the form, you rate yourself only once on your overall performance. So, it's not like just saying yeah i did a good job and i expect you to take my word for it. the form is pretty extensive and pretty much requires you to outline your entire year's work.

[mishl982]

Um, I wasn't trying to sound condescending or anything, just giving my advice, like everyone else in this thread.

[workaholic?]

Um, I wasn't trying to sound condescending or anything, just giving my advice, like everyone else in this thread.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean for it to sound like i was upset or anything. I do know people who's company's don't require an allout review of work done that year, so I really just meant to explain that our review process is pretty extensive in itself and requires that we provide evidence of our work.

Anyway, I have my review in a little over an hour, and I'm pretty nervous. My boyfriend/coworker says i have absolutely nothing to worry about...that he thinks i'm probably one of the only people in our group who shouldn't be worried. So, I guess that's encouraging at least. He's not really one to gloss over things about work either just to make me feel good, so i'm pretty certain he's being honest. I should be up for a paygrade promotion, though, and that's what makes me nervous. It's practically standard practice for people to get this promotion at their second review, so if i don't, i feel like i should have been told sooner that i wasn't doing something right.

i'm sure i'm worried for nothing, but wish me luck anyway.

[Syracuse]

I'd give myself all top scores no matter what.:D

[old_school_soul]

I document what I do during the year, and give myself mostly top scores. We have to write 3-4 sentence of justification for top scores.