This is why you are doing the evaluation. Knowing your objective can help you better formulate feedback and will help your employee know what to expect.  For example, are you focusing on employee improvement? Are you doing a company-wide assessment to determine what kind of professional development your company would benefit from most? Are you performing a quarterly review? Tell the employee the objective when you provide them with the feedback. You could say, "The company plans to offer professional development sessions based on employee needs, so I'm conducting performance reviews for each employee." This could include feedback from a prior review, as well as informal feedback given throughout the evaluation period. You should also assess what they have done with that feedback. Have they used it to improve? Did it not get addressed?  If they acted on past feedback, then this could be included as a positive in this review. If they didn’t address past feedback, you can discuss both the original issue and the lack of initiative in not addressing the feedback. It’s always best to start with the good comments. Tell the employee what they’ve been doing right, specifying any achievements they have had. Be honest, but try to include as many positive things as you will negative.  Give examples, such as “You showed initiative when you volunteered to take the project lead, and you’ve shown great leadership skills by coordinating your team, incorporating suggestions from others, and delegating work tasks.” Praise behavior that you want to see continued. Focus your criticism on what can most benefit your organization or the employee’s work goals. Tell them what you have seen them struggling with, and why it’s an issue. Make your examples specific. For example, “In your past 3 presentations, you’ve left off the budget projections, slowing the project,” or “The average number of accounts gained last quarter was 6, but you only secured 2. This is considered under-performance.” This will help your employee know what they should focus on moving forward, allowing you to get what your organization needs out of the employee. It will also make the feedback more useful to the employee because they know what you want them to take away from the evaluation.  Objectives should be short and specific. For example, "Employee will average 4 sales per day," "Employee will increase communication with clients," or "Employee will complete leadership training." Make sure that the next evaluation that you do for this employee focuses on these performance objectives, since that is what your employee will expect. Base your recommendations on the constructive criticism you have provided. Depending on your resources, this could include workshops, training courses, in-house training, or mentorships. You may even want to look for free courses online if resources are low.  Be open to changing these suggestions after you discuss the review with the employee. For example, your employee may request professional development that you hadn't considered. You should also consider the employment goals of your employee. For example, if your employee wants to move to a management position, you might choose leadership training as a professional development option. Alternatively, if your employee is interested in graphic design, you may allow them to attend training courses so that they can use those skills for your organization. No matter how glowing the performance review is, no one likes to be told about their shortcomings or what they need to do to improve. Ending with a piece of encouragement can help the employee leave feeling empowered rather than overwhelmed or discouraged. Say something like, “Last quarter had some unexpected hiccups, but you’ve done a great job adjusting your workload. We like what we’ve been seeing and hope to see more good stuff this quarter.” This could be a verbal response after you discuss the review with them, or you could give them a feedback form to complete. You will receive a better response if you allow the employee to think about the performance review and compose feedback without you present. Ask the person to offer their own feedback on the feedback you provided. For example, “If you could improve one thing about how I provided feedback, what would it be?" and “Was the feedback clear and useful?”
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One-sentence summary -- Set an objective for the performance review. Review feedback they were previously given. Explain the positive feedback, giving specific examples. Give constructive criticism, providing specific examples. Set performance objectives for the next evaluation period. Suggest professional development opportunities. End with a piece of encouragement. Encourage a response from the receiver.


Social media can play a large role in the hiring processes of many agencies and organizations, who will look not only at your LinkedIn profile, but also at your Facebook and Twitter accounts, as applicable. Describe your online presence on your resume, and provide links to the social-media pages that you would like your potential employers to access. When job hunting, these sites—especially LinkedIn—should be regularly updated and maintained just as careful as your paper-copy resume. Include a statement to the effect of: “I have stayed current with hiring practices and job-search procedures, and list relevant information about my past work experience at my LinkedIn profile [include URL]. I am also active on Facebook and Twitter.” Alternately, if you prefer not to have an online social media presence, note this clearly on your resume. It’s better to acknowledge the fact that you choose not to market yourself online than to risk appearing out of touch with modern technology and hiring practices. You can simply include a statement such as: “While I realize that some parts of the job-search process can take part online, I have chosen not to use a site such as LinkedIn because I would prefer my professional experience be summarized only on my resume.” Modern resumes are brief: they typically comprise no more than two pages. If your resume follows outdated resume-writing conventions—especially if the style of your resume is decades old—you will appear professionally out-of-touch and a poor choice to fill the position. Remove excess verbiage from your paragraphs, and focus on using active verbs that highlight professional skills. Only include a couple of concise bullet points describing your responsibilities at each prior job. Use verbs and active language, for example: “Developed material for cooling semi-truck radiators that saved $200,000 per year.” While conventional chronological resumes present employment information from most recent to oldest and span an individual’s entire working career, this can be detrimental to older job seekers. Your decades of experience may make you appear too old or over-qualified for the job. Either a functional or combination resume will let you present your workplace proficiencies without relying on dates. Plan to format your resume in one of these two styles:  A functional resume highlights the skills that you’ve acquired over your career, regardless of chronology, and is a good choice for people with gaps in their work history.  A combination resume balances professional skills with your work history by first listing your relevant skills and experiences, and then giving a brief chronology of your work experiences. This is an outdated resume-composition technique which would appear out of place on a contemporary resume. The assumption here is that the prospective employer will contact you if they’d like to move forward in the hiring process and contact your references, so you don’t need to provide the names of references prior to (or in) the interview.  Of course, you will need to have the names and contact information (at least email and phone) of 2–4 individuals who will be able to vouch for your professional and personal excellence. You can include a brief sentence at the bottom of your resume: “Professional references available upon request.”
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One-sentence summary --
Mention your online presence. Mention in brief your reason for not having an online presence. Reformat and streamline your resume. Select a functional or combination resume format. Don’t list “references available” at the bottom of your resume.