The only reason to give yourself superior ratings across the board is if your performance is superior across the board. If it is not, then your stellar self-assessment will come across as a combination of laziness and attempted deception, neither of which plays well in most organizations.
There are several good reasons to include self-evaluations in the overall evaluation process. When employees fill out the same evaluation forms as their managers, the mystery regarding the criteria on which employees are judged are completely removed. The more you know about these standards, the more you can shape your performance to meet them.
Your self-evaluation also provides a jump-start for the in-person session. It allows you and your manager to immediately discuss performance, rather than discussing the criteria used in the process. With a self-evaluation, you can make sure that your manager knows about your accomplishments. If he has missed some of your successes, you now have an opportunity to fill in the gaps.
If your manager rates you higher than you rate yourself, he is not going to doubt your performance. All it means is that you are better than you think, and that's worth thinking about.
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