What a subject, huh? Interestingly this is what I had to do today . . . I had to "toot my own horn" so to speak!
At some point you'll have a job . . . hopefully a really good one . . . a job for which you will be evaluated from year to year. There are a number of reasons these are done . . . the biggest one being to establish whether or not you're actually doing a good job!
In my case, yeah, the higher-ups want to make sure I'm meeting or exceeding goals, but if I were to score really low on it, I would not be eligible for the yearly "across the board" raises that come sporadically! Oh, I make sure I meet or exceed their expectations since "merit" raises are VERY rare!
In the 7 years I've been here, never once have I been required to self-evaluate . . . it's not as easy as it sounds! For every 5 (the goals are rated 1-5) I marked, I had to write a summary of the ways in which I have chosen to give myself such a high rating. Yeah, little ego comes into play . . . it sounds like bragging, but the reality is, if you're good at your job, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to state some reasons why!
Stick with facts though . . . list some things you actually put into play! Did you create a new program that benefits everyone around you? Did you find a more efficient way to communicate with customers? Did you surpass company expectations in sales goals?
My only REAL objection to doing this: I didn't know ahead of time that it was going to happen . . . if I had, I would have kept a running list of all of the things I've done for the last year!
My advice to you: When you find that dream job . . . or really any job where someone will do a yearly evaluation . . . use some method to keep track of every single accomplishment!! I'm not kidding!! You might have to do this at some point in your life.
Leonardo Da Vinci was a brilliant, accomplished man . . . an inventor, painter, sculptor, architect, scientist, mathematician, writer, cartographer, botanist . . . the list gets rather lenghty . . . "Universal Genius" they call him . . . the original "Renaissance Man" . . . had a lot of things to say about getting things done:
“It had
long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back
and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.”
Just an FYI: Da Vinci was born in 1452 and has been credited with the inspiration for inventions like the helicopter, parachute, and tank . . . things built loooooong after he died!
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