There is such a wide variety of self-assessments out there that it can seem overwhelming.

Performance assessments focuses on a set of objectives for a certain time period and measuring your performance against those metrics at the end. This type of assessment is very useful for employer/employee relationships. Asking employees to evaluate their own performance or even a coworker’s can provide valuable insight. For personal use, it can help you to keep track of goals that you have for yourself and forcing you to be accountable at the end of the time frame as to what was completed.

Interview questions are what we see in a lot of the assessments online. These ask you to do a personal evaluation on a certain topic from vanity to style of learning. In this area, there are certain types that should be avoided or, at the very least, done with discretion. Specifically, questions comparing you to other people, grading your looks, your brains, or the like are detrimental to your self-esteem and unnecessary assessments. Getting negative feedback from this type of assessment can have a very negative impact on oneself. Be cautious.

Skills and knowledge assessments are useful self-evaluation tools to see where you stand on certain objectives you have for yourself. More often than not, it is useful for you to have secondary opinions on your skill or knowledge levels. Be cautious in this area as well because it is very easy to get sucked into comparing your results to others and being negative on yourself because of it.

Training and mentoring evaluations often take place before proceeding with a lesson on a certain topic. As in a teacher having students take a quiz to see what was retained from the previous year before moving forward with the lesson plan. This can be useful to make sure that all the important topics are covered and the knowledge is understood.

Perhaps one of the best assessments are those that evaluate your personal goals, no matter what they may be. It is essential to review your goals on a regular basis to help keep you on track. It can be fairly easy to derail if you’re not careful.

While each assessment type has its place, proceed with caution. Too much focus on analysis of oneself can be extremely harmful to both self-esteem and confidence.