How to answer performance appraisal questions

In this file, you can ref useful information about how to answer performance appraisal questions
such as how to answer performance appraisal questions methods, how to answer performance
appraisal questions tips, how to answer performance appraisal questions forms, how to answer
performance appraisal questions phrases If you need more assistant for how to answer
performance appraisal questions, please leave your comment at the end of file.
Other useful material for you:
performanceappraisal123.com/1125-free-performance-review-phrases
performanceappraisal123.com/free-28-performance-appraisal-forms
performanceappraisal123.com/free-ebook-11-methods-for-performance-appraisal

I. Contents of getting how to answer performance appraisal

questions
==================
It's the end of the year, which means it's performance review season for many of you at work.
Ideally, there should be no surprises in your review, but we've all thought that before. This year,
give yourself a self-review so you'll have all the ammo you need to respond to criticism and
suggest improvements long before your boss confronts you. Here's how to make that self-review
less painful and more usefulnot just for this year, but for your whole career.
Self-reviews are usually the worst part of performance review season. You're already busy, and
now you have to sit down and take time out to fill out a document where you don't want to be too
boastful but you don't want to call yourself out on your mistakes openly, either. Here's the
clincher though: self-reviews only suck because you know they can (and likely will) be used
against you when it comes time to do the review. Let's take the self-review process and turn it
into something really useful.
In this post, we'll walk you through doing a real, private self-review, identifying your
professional pain points and irritations, and then coming up with solutions that you can bring to
the table when you meet with your boss. We'll also chat about how you can make the whole
process even more painless next year.
Step One: Write Down What You Do, What Others Think You Do, and What You Should
Be Doing

The first thing you need to do is get clear on what it is you actually do every day, and compare
that with what your job description says you do. Take some time one afternoonmaybe on a
Friday when you're doing your weekly reviewto write down what you think your regular
responsibilities are. Include all of the things that make your position what it is, but don't forget to
include all of those other things your boss or colleagues saddle you with. You know, "other duties
as assigned," either because someone else doesn't feel like doing it, or you have unique skills that
make you the best for the job. Photo by Denisenko. (Shutterstock)
Once you have a good complete picture of all of the things you do at work, make a separate list
of the things that are actually part of your job as advertised. If you can, look for a copy of the
opening you applied for, or for a similar one that your company may be advertising. Doing this
can be illuminating because you usually stumble on something that you probably should be
doing, but don't. Usually it's harmless, outdated, or some corp-speak that doesn't translate into
day-to-day duties, but keep your eye on it.
Once you've finished your two lists, arrange them so your most important and job-critical
responsibilities are at the top. Now, assign each two letter grades from A to F to each. The first is
how important and interesting the responsibility is to you. The second is how important you
think the task is to your boss. If you see anything you hate doing but know is important to your
company, make a note of it. If you see anything you love doing but you know it's not important
to your role, make a note of that as well.
Step Two: Review Yourself from Your and Your Boss's Perspectives
Next, it's time to fill out those dreaded self-review forms. Don't worry: what makes our forms
different is that first, we're going to keep the results private, and second, we're going to use forms
that are actually useful. You'll want to do three quick critiques of yourself: how well you think
you're doing from your perspective, how well you think you're doing from your boss'
perspective, and how engaged you are with your work. Photo by Jacob Btter.
Review Yourself from Your Perspective: Your employer probably has a self-review form they use
for this purpose. If they do, use thatit's the best tool to get yourself in the mindset that you
need to be in for the real thing. Just make two copies: one you can fill out and review on your
own, and one you can return to your boss. We both know that the answers you give your boss
will be massaged so they're guarded but honest, so you want a copy where you can really tear
into yourselfor toot your own horn without worrying sounding vain, as the case may be. At it's
core, whatever your form says, you should ask yourself these basic questions:
How well do you feel you've performed this year, on the whole? It's an irritating question, but
remember, the only person seeing your answer this time is you. Be honest, and get your thoughts
out about your overall performance. Have you been coasting? Why? Are you more energetic now
that you're off that one project that kept you on-call on weekends?

What were some of your biggest accomplishments this year? List them all, and don't be shy.
Think hard about thisthese will eventually be some of the things you take to your real review
and use as ammunition to show how valuable you are to your boss and to the company
overall.What areas or skills do you want to develop over the next year? This oft-asked question is
usually interpreted as "how do you want to improve," but it should also be "what parts of your
job do you want to streamline or eliminate next year?" Think of it in terms of how you can grow
and what skills you can learn, but also how you can improve your job and spend more time doing
the things about it that drew you to the job in the first place.What are your goals for the coming
year? Much like the previous question, this one should be more about moves you want to make,
things you want to focus on, and in your case, since this is just between you and you, it can
include things like switching departments, moving to a new job in (or outside) of the company,
and how you're going to lay the groundwork to get there.
Review Yourself from Your Boss's Perspective: This one will take as much objectivity as you can
muster. Put yourself in your boss's shoes and review yourself from his or her perspective, using
the prioritized responsibilities we mentioned earlier. Start with the responsibilities you have that
are most important to your boss, and write down how well you do those things, and how
frequently you do them. Photo by Robyn Mackenzie (Shutterstock).
Again, if you can use the actual evaluation form that your boss uses (like last year's copy, for
example) then use that. If not, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has some great
template forms that you can use for this exercise.
The Narrative Form (MS Word) gives you a more conversational, essay-style form to fill out.
It asks some basic questions about your overall performance, areas of exceptional performance
that you think your boss will note (or that they've already praised you for,) areas of improvement,
and your expectations for the coming year.
The Descriptive Scale Form (MS Word) is best for companies where the review process actually
uses a score, or if your review form has bubbles on it for "exceeds expectations," "meets
expectations," and so on. It's a bit longer, but it asks specifically targeted questions that are easier
for you to answer from your boss's perspective. For example, "Holds self accountable for
assigned responsibilities; sees through tasks to completion in a timely manner," has responses
ranging from "exceptional" to "proficient" to "unsatisfactory." There's room under each topic for
brief elaboration.
This may seem rough, but it's actually really useful. When it comes time for your actual review,
think back to this exercise and figure out exactly how close you and your boss are on each of
these areas. Ideally, your boss would answer these questions the same way you would. If you're
not on the same page, or if you have no idea how your boss might think about a specific

question, you may not be communicating enough with them. If you're worried about one of the
questions, you may have stumbled on something you can bring up as something you'd like to
improve, or get rid of entirely.
Find Out How Engaged You Are at Work: Reviewing your performance is important, but it's only
part of the overall picture of you as an employee. You also want to take a step back and think
about how engaged you are with your work and your company. Are you doing what you want to
do or that you think you're good at, or are you just doing what you know how to do so you can
draw a paycheck? Photo by Telekhovskyi (Shutterstock).
Gallup has 12 questions that measure this, published in the book First, Break All the Rules: What
the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently. Some may sound silly, but they're worth thinking
about:
Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?At work, do I have the
opportunity to do what I do best every day?In the last seven days, have I received recognition or
praise for doing good work?Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a
person?Is there someone at work who encourages my development?At work, do my opinions
seem to count?Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?Are
my co-workers committed to doing quality work?Do I have a best friend at work?In the last six
months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?This last year, have I had
opportunities at work to learn and grow?
Shoot from the hip here. The point is to draw from your gut, which is most likely to be truthful
about the actual answers. For example, you should know offhand if you've been praised in the
past week, or if you have someone at work you look forward to seeing every day or someone
you'd invite over for dinner (eg, the "best friend.") You should know offhand whether you think
your opinions matter, or if you have a chance to do work that you're really good at.
When you're finished, you'll have a remarkable picture of your personal morale. HR experts like
to call it "employee engagement," but you can use it as a powerful self-evaluation tool. At the
very least, your answers will reveal if you're happy at work (and what you're happy with,)
whether you're unhappy but things are worth trying to salvage, or if you're so jaded it's time to
leave. You can use your responses to identify those professional pain points that hold you back
not just in your job, but your career as a whole.
Step Three: Identify Your Pain Points and Bring Them Up To Your Boss
You've reviewed what you do well, what you don't do well, and matched it all up to your
expectations and job description. Now, write down those things that you hate about your job.
We're not talking about the fact that the coffee machine never seems to get cleaned, we're talking
about the fact that you're on call more than your colleagues are, or the fact that you're supporting

an ailing and old platform with no manufacturer support. These are functional things that you
and your manager should sort out. Photo by Pressmaster (Shutterstock).
You also want to note the bigger career pain points that you have. If you're a software developer
but you just don't have time to learn new languages or new technologies, that's not just a job
problem, it's a career problem. If you're a project manager and want to get your PMP, bring it up
to your managergetting certified can only add to your value to the company. Think about your
career growth overall and what may be limiting you about your current job. Bring them up to
your manager, but come with solutions in mind that you can propose. Your boss may be willing
to help, but having a solution to the problem in hand at the same time will go a long way towards
getting what you need to be a better, stronger, more skillful you.
For Next Year (and Beyond): Keep a Work Diary and Get Regular Feedback
We know this is a lot of work for a performance review. Here's the secret though: you only have
to do most of it if you've never done any of it before, or if you know there's a risk that you and
your boss may not be on the same page about everything. For example, if you and your manager
communicate often, there's no reason to do a review from their perspectiveyou know the two
of you will see eye-to-eye anyway. Photo by ventdusud.
If you don't keep a work diary, now is a great time to start. Even journaling a day or week up to
your review can give you a slice of your own life on paper. You can review it at a distance, feel
energized by the things you accomplished, and reflect on whether the conflicts and irritations you
have are big problems or little stuff. You'll get a dose of objectivity that you can apply to your
job, and easily identify the things you love or hate about it.
Similarly, if you and your boss don't communicate often enough, see if you can schedule one-onones with them to get regular feedback and clarify your responsibilities. If you two don't agree
on what's important and what you should spend your time doing, you'll never be successful. It
may sound painful, but a half-hour every week or two can go a long way towards better reviews,
bigger raises, and great references when you do move on to a better gig.
Finally, use your review exercises as a tool to build a real career plan you can follow. Don't just
go to work every day and let it be something that passively happens to you between 8am and
6pmtake control of your professional life and give it some direction. Sometimes, knowing
where you're going and what you're doing is the difference between having a "job" and a
"career."
==================

III. Performance appraisal methods

1. Essay Method
In this method the rater writes down the employee
description in detail within a number of broad categories
like, overall impression of performance, promoteability
of employee, existing capabilities and qualifications of
performing jobs, strengths and weaknesses and training
needs of the employee. Advantage It is extremely
useful in filing information gaps about the employees
that often occur in a better-structured checklist.
Disadvantages It its highly dependent upon the writing
skills of rater and most of them are not good writers.
They may get confused success depends on the memory
power of raters.

2. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales

statements of effective and ineffective behaviors
determine the points. They are said to be
behaviorally anchored. The rater is supposed to
say, which behavior describes the employee
performance. Advantages helps overcome rating
errors. Disadvantages Suffers from distortions
inherent in most rating techniques.

3. Rating Scale

Rating scales consists of several numerical scales

representing job related performance criterions such as
dependability, initiative, output, attendance, attitude etc.
Each scales ranges from excellent to poor. The total
numerical scores are computed and final conclusions are
derived. Advantages Adaptability, easy to use, low cost,
every type of job can be evaluated, large number of
employees covered, no formal training required.
Disadvantages Raters biases

4. Checklist method
Under this method, checklist of statements of traits of
employee in the form of Yes or No based questions is
prepared. Here the rater only does the reporting or
checking and HR department does the actual evaluation.
Advantages economy, ease of administration, limited
training required, standardization. Disadvantages Raters
biases, use of improper weighs by HR, does not allow
rater to give relative ratings

5.Ranking Method
The ranking system requires the rater to rank his
subordinates on overall performance. This consists in
simply putting a man in a rank order. Under this method,
the ranking of an employee in a work group is done
against that of another employee. The relative position of
each employee is tested in terms of his numerical rank. It
may also be done by ranking a person on his job
performance against another member of the competitive
group.
Advantages of Ranking Method
Employees are ranked according to their
performance levels.
It is easier to rank the best and the worst
employee.
Limitations of Ranking Method
The whole man is compared with another
whole man in this method. In practice, it is very difficult
to compare individuals possessing various individual
traits.
This method speaks only of the position where an
employee stands in his group. It does not test anything
about how much better or how much worse an employee
is when compared to another employee.
When a large number of employees are working,
ranking of individuals become a difficult issue.
There is no systematic procedure for ranking
individuals in the organization. The ranking system does
not eliminate the possibility of snap judgements.

6. Critical Incidents Method

The approach is focused on certain critical behaviors of

employee that makes all the difference in the
performance. Supervisors as and when they occur record
such incidents. Advantages Evaluations are based on
actual job behaviors, ratings are supported by
descriptions, feedback is easy, reduces recency biases,
chances of subordinate improvement are high.
Disadvantages Negative incidents can be prioritized,
forgetting incidents, overly close supervision; feedback
may be too much and may appear to be punishment.

III. Other topics related to How to answer performance

appraisal questions (pdf, doc file download)
Top 28 performance appraisal forms
performance appraisal comments
11 performance appraisal methods
25 performance appraisal examples
performance appraisal phrases
performance appraisal process
performance appraisal template
performance appraisal system
performance appraisal answers
performance appraisal questions
performance appraisal techniques
performance appraisal format
performance appraisal templates
performance appraisal questionnaire
performance appraisal software
performance appraisal tools
performance appraisal interview
performance appraisal phrases examples
performance appraisal objectives
performance appraisal policy
performance appraisal letter
performance appraisal types

performance appraisal quotes

performance appraisal articles