Even if you have good rapport and a public track record of excellence, your employer probably doesn’t know the extent of your work. Show them. You also probably don’t realize the extent of your work. Remind yourself of your progress.
Prior to joining Wunderite, I worked at established companies that had periodic formalized reviews. Sometimes the review process was rigid—limited at demonstrating someone’s true impact at a company. But at least it was a starting point.
While working at an early-stage startup, it can be easy to forget about rituals that are routine at established companies. People are invested in building the product, they’re working hard, and they might not think about the finer processes of Talent Management.
Impacts and assessment
A year and a half into my time at Wunderite, while reviewing my work log, it occurred to me that “no one has really seen my work log except for me.” Right then I started reflecting on my work in a file called 2021 Personal Retrospective. It was rough. I had no defined audience and there was hardly any structure: free flowing thought. But the process forced me to reflect on my work, explain my decisions, consider how I could do things differently, and outline goals for the upcoming year.
After I wrote my 2021 Personal Retrospective, I decided to share it with a few peers with four goals in mind:
My salary should reflect my impact.
I want to be recognized for my contributions.
Self-reflection.
I want feedback so I can improve.
Last month I went through the same process and named it: 2022 Personal Assessment and Impacts. My annual ritual is starting to take shape. Here’s an outline of the process:
Describe your goal(s) with specificity.
Define your audience.
Review your work and write it all down.
Describe impact and outcome.
Make a copy, then slash and burn (aggressively edit).
Write down three SMART goals.
Describe your goal
Reflection and introspection are powerful exercises for fulfillment and self-improvement. That’s reason enough to write a personal assessment. Map your progress and plan for the future. Do it on an annual basis, or more frequently. But maybe you have a specific goal in mind…
Campaign for a raise
Job promotion
Land a career job
College or graduate admissions
Personal reflection
Define the outcome that you want to achieve, with specificity. Expanding on the list from above…
What percentage or dollar amount raise? When?
What title? Which responsibilities are you willing to commit to?
Which role? Which company? In what time frame?
Which university? What are you interested in studying? When will you graduate?
What do you want to learn about yourself? Which skills do you want to improve?
Define your audience
Your audience should be determined by your goal. Are you addressing a manager, business partner, future employer, yourself, or someone else? Draft your personal assessment with your audience in mind, so that your language and voice is targeted and appropriate. Write for the reader, not the writer.
Use a work log to track how you spend time
A work log should honestly record how you spend your time day-to-day. For me, a work log is not where I prioritize, brainstorm, or reflect on my work (I have a journal for that). It just tells me what I did on a particular day. I use a spreadsheet with several columns that outline where I frequently spend time (e.g. Research, Prototype, Meetings, etc.)
If you’ve never contributed to a work log, start right now. Take an hour and retroactively review all your contributions made in the last year (or more). Refer to email, Slack/Teams/messaging, Jira/Basecamp/project planning software, task lists, and any other paper trails that will help jog your memory.
Don’t limit yourself to work that falls within your job description. Consider all areas where you have an impact. Write everything down. Now is not the time to be discerning.
Describe impact and outcome
Use a subheading to outline each project or achievement in 6 words or less. For each project, add 1-3 bullet points that describe impacts and outcome in 20 words or less. Use specific numbers to illustrate your impact. For example:
Yes: Designed a form workflow that increased customer engagement by 50% and decreased time to completion from 1 hour to 15 minutes.
No: Designed an end-to-end workflow for adding a form from the agent dashboard, creating a profile, filling out a form, and sharing, all within the same wizard.
You might not have access to specific numbers; use the best data available. Get creative (but be honest). In this case, quantitative data is most effective, but qualitative data can still be useful to illustrate impact.
Do: Honestly describe your contribution and resulting impact. i.e. “I did this, here's the impact.”
Don’t: Boast and stretch the truth. i.e. “I’m the man because I did this.”
This is also an opportunity to practice writing to your audience. Don’t assume that your audience has full context about projects you contributed to. In most cases it’s appropriate to describe your work in simple industry terms. For example, if you’re a software engineer, address your assessment as if the reader is not an engineer, but has elementary knowledge of your industry.
Depending on the scope of your work, it may be helpful to organize your projects and achievements by theme. For example, my personal assessment has these themes:
UX Projects
Scalability and Maintainability
Hiring, Recruiting, and Investing
Company Culture
Looking Forward (more on this below)
BLUF (bottom line up front)
BLUF is a communication technique originating from the military. The premise: life-or-death decisions could be made using your information, so lead with what’s most important. Don’t bury the lead.
The stakes probably aren’t as high in your case, but you should highlight the most relevant experience that you are proud of, in descending order. As Steven Krug says: Don’t Make Me Think.
Slash and burn
“Editing” often implies a light touch. In reality, you should be prepared to rip out at least 50% of your draft, if not more. Don’t just tweak grammar and vocabulary. Be judicious with your words. Start by creating a backup copy of your personal assessment, then get heavy-handed with a thick red marker (or liberal use of the Delete key).
The first article I published on Substack started out as a Twitter thread. It was a valuable lesson in editing. Without relying on cheap abbreviations or slang, use the 240 character limit to sharpen your writing by scrutinizing each word. What’s essential to your message? What fluff doesn’t add value? Write clearly and concisely.
Plan for the future
The goal of a personal assessment is to highlight accomplishments and past work. But you should also learn from the retrospective process and apply it to the future. End your personal assessment by writing down three SMART goals (an acronym commonly attributed to George T. Doran and Peter Drucker): specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time bound.
Consider:
What is exciting, fulfilling, and worth further pursuit?
Where can I make the biggest impact?
Where can I improve?
What mistakes can I learn from?
Organize each goal into a subheading and add 3-5 bullet points summarizing your SMART criteria for the goal. After completing a draft of three SMART goals, edit your personal assessment end-to-end.
By the end of the exercise you should have a summary of all major accomplishments listed as subheadings with most relevant and impactful experience at the top, outcomes concisely illustrated with numbers, organized by theme, and three SMART goals for the upcoming year. Go get that raise, promotion, or job. Write a personal assessment and see how much you’ve grown.
Interesting read!