TIPS FOR WRITING YOUR SELF-ASSESSMENTS WITH CCAR or OER
We have been asked to create a self-assessment sample in both the CCAR and OER formats. Many Army Civilian agencies are using the OER format for self-assessments. Both CCAR and OER are great because the structure recommends additional information in the self-assessment examples. Nancy Segal has written this JO and self-assessment sample for you to use as a template. The NSPS book has about 80 more sample JOs and at least 24 Self-Assessment Accomplishments for you to study while you are writing in our Job Objective and Self-Assessment Library.
ASSESSMENTS WITH MORE DETAILS: Some people write just one or two sentences for each accomplishment and that may not be enough for the raters to understand the scope of the accomplishment (context), what you did to achieve it (efforts or actions), what obstacles you overcame (challenge), and what happened (results). If you don’t give background information or detail, they may not understand the example. The more background on the value of your performance to your mission, the better you will be rated.
RECOMMENDED: WRITE YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS WITH ONE OF THE FORMATS: CCAR or OER
IT’S OKAY TO WRITE ONE EXAMPLE, IF IT IS A MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT!
This Sample Job Objective in this newsletter will have only ONE Accomplishment, because it is a MAJOR Accomplishment for the year and clearly demonstrate how she exceeded her job objective this year. This works for MAJOR accomplishments. Otherwise, you can write two accomplishments that will average 1,000 characters.
The CCAR format is the original format recommended: Context, Challenge, Action, Results. Most of the samples in the NSPS book are in the CCAR format. They can be changed to OER easily. If you would like to use our Free CCAR Self-Assessment Builder, it could help you focus on your writing – add more details and background on the accomplishment. Then, you can edit back to 1,000 or 1,500 characters.
Supervisors/ Raters, Pay Pool Staff might appreciate the acronyms for easier reading: CCAR or OER in the paragraphs. They will have a lot of assessments to read and understand about your performance this year.
Count your characters: You can write one, two, or three accomplishments in the 2,000 character space in the PAA 3.0.Make sure you check your self-assessments against the Expected and Enhanced Benchmarks. You can see the benchmarks and keywords from the descriptions at our very popular and free NSPS Keyword Tree. 30,000 DOD employees have accessed the Keyword Tree for writing self-assessments.
Good luck with your writing. If you want to see more JOs and self-assessments, the new book, Writing Your NSPS Self-Assessment, 2nd edition has many more examples.
You can see the Job Objective Library Table of Contents here. You can also practice your self-assessment writing by using the PAA 3.0 Fillable form. Then copy and paste the entire document into My Biz when it is all completed. The PAA fillable form is available here.
You can order the 2nd Edition of the book here – both print book (shipping end of this week), or eBook, available immediately!
