Ugh. So I hear a self-eval coming up soon, which I have yet to complete. This is, of course, no accident – I just find the entire process ridiculous. How can one even be objective about themself? And if they could, why would they be? It’s in their best interest to show themselves in the best possible light; why would anyone draw attention to area they need to ‘improve’ on?
How do you guys typically handle these things?
I’m maybe a bit obnoxious about these things. No one expects you to be critical of yourself. If pressed, I’ll say I’d like more education on X subject…and fill in details with heavy hints that the company requesting the evaluation should pay for said education. If asked what my biggest flaws on, I suggest that I talk to much. Who cares?
Otherwise, here’s what you do: You work hard, even when things go wrong, it’s not because you didn’t TRY your best. You make the best out of every situation. You are a “yes man” unless it’s in your best interest to go against authority. You work well with others, unless the others are all WRONG and you must contradict them for the benefit of the company.
In otherwords, you do no wrong. If they don’t know what your flaws are, why point them out? Let them come up with their own (which will invariably be way off the mark, depending on whether they have a raise for you in the budget or not).
Best of luck. I’m terribly cynical about these things because I think they are pointless and a waste of time!
We have something similar. To me, it’s management’s way of not doing their job. The people that review me don’t even know me. Not only have we never met, but we’ve never interacted in any way except for the phone review. They talk to people who I work with to get their information. Why bother reviewing me? Let someone who actually works with me do the review.
Oh, I feel for you. My annual review is coming up (my eighth with this company), and the self-evaluation form is sitting on my desk, half filled-out. It’s due on my manager’s desk by the end of the day, and I keep putting off finishing it. The thing is, it’s more of a formality, I’ve done it several times before, I’ve never had a bad review, my manager is supportive and understanding, we work well together, etc.
But I still hate filling out the bloody form.
Where we work, we do self-evaluations, followed by supervisor evaluations. I don’t mind the self-evals. I figure it’s a good chance for me to toot my horn to the higher-ups, who aren’t exactly quick at noticing either screw-ups or excellent work. When I can give them a detailed list of the specific things I’ve accomplished this year, it makes it easier for me to ask for a raise.
Easy - “Susan is practically perfect in every way. Her only fault is expecting too much of herself”.
Susan
Do companies actually hand these out? As a matter of course? Has anyone ever written “I suck and should be fired.”?
Seriously?
Man, what a world.
That’s how it was at my last company, too.
Not only are the self-evals a chance to present all of your accomplishments at once, but I was always curious to find out what my boss thought my strengths/weaknesses were vs what I thought they were. I appreciated the opportunity to present and discuss a frank assessment of myself, and sometimes my boss’s points would help me learn something about myself.
I know that a lot depends on the company, but surely I can’t be the only person who thinks that self-evals can be a useful performance management tool (aside from just being a way to brag about yourself)?
It’s a game, one of those wonderfully pointless little work games. Aggrandisement is the key here. Put yourself down as damn near perfect. If they are silly enough to base payrises etc on your own assessment of yourself then let THEM justify talking you down from ‘perfect employee’. 
At which point you lodge a grievance because you were demeaned by your management.
Self evaluations are, as mentioned, a good way to list accomplishments, or tasks completed, if you like to think of it that way. Your boss may have genuinely lost track of any number of ‘small things’ that have been handed to you over the year that took more time and effort than expected.
What I hated were the 360 reviews. Everyone had to be reviewed by their boss, themselves, 2-3 co-workers, and 2-3 underlings or ‘customers’. So everyone was spending a lot of time writing reviews for people who were going to be reviewing them soon. And we were all working on our own projects, so it was hard to know what a co-worker had been doing. Uck.