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Overview

A self-assessment is a formal evaluation cycle assigned to you by your manager or an administrator. During a self-assessment, you review each skill assigned to your role and grade your own proficiency using your organization’s grading scale (typically 1–5). You can also mark skills that do not apply to your role and flag skills you want to develop. Self-assessments exist to give employees a voice in how their skills are recorded. Rather than relying solely on manager observations, self-assessments capture your own view of your proficiency — which your manager and administrator can then compare against their own assessment and the role’s benchmark expectations. All employees can complete self-assessments when one is assigned to them. You do not need any special permissions to access or complete your self-assessment.

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Navigating to Your Assessments

To view your active and completed assessments Select Assessments from the left sidebar navigation. The Assessments page shows all assessments assigned to you, with the following columns: An assessment shows Ended when your administrator has closed the assessment cycle. In this case, the action button shows Scorecard so you can view your results. If the assessment ended before you submitted, contact your administrator. Select any assessment row or its action button to open it.

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Starting an Assessment

When you open a new assessment for the first time, an intro modal appears to prepare you before you begin grading. Step 1: Keyboard shortcuts The first step of the intro modal shows the keyboard shortcuts available during grading. These shortcuts let you navigate and grade efficiently without using your mouse. Select Continue to proceed to the assessment overview. Step 2: Assessment overview The second step shows a summary of your assessment: Select Start Assessment to begin grading. If you have already started and are returning to continue, the button reads Continue Assessment.

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Understanding the Grading Layout

The assessment grading interface is divided into three areas: The center content area shows:

• Skill title — Displayed as “[Section]: Skill Name” (for example, “Leadership: Team Management”)
• Skill description — A collapsible description of what the skill involves
• Labels — Any labels applied to the skill for categorization
• Progress counter — “X of Y graded” shown at the top right, updating after each grade

The grading table in the center has the following columns:

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Grading a Skill

To grade a skill:

1. In the Grade column, select Add Grade to open the grade selector.
2. In the grade selector, choose the grade that best reflects your current proficiency level. Each grade option shows a short description (for example, “Proficient”) and a longer detail description.
3. Select your chosen grade. The grade saves automatically and the Grade column updates to show your selection.

The grade selector also shows a Benchmark badge next to the grade that matches your role’s expected level, and a Prior badge next to the grade that matches your previous assessment, so you can orient yourself before selecting. When you select a grade, the progress counter increments and the skill in the left sidebar shows a checkmark indicating it has been graded. The Next button at the bottom of the page activates, allowing you to move to the next skill.

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Marking a Skill as Not Applicable

If a skill does not apply to your role or current work, you can mark it as Not Applicable instead of assigning a grade. To mark a skill as Not Applicable:

1. In the N/A column, toggle the switch on.

When a skill is marked Not Applicable:

• The grade is cleared and the Grade column shows an N/A indicator.
• The Focus button is disabled for that skill.
• The skill counts as completed for the purposes of assessment progress.
• The skill is excluded from the average grade calculation shown at the end of the assessment.

To reverse the Not Applicable status, toggle the switch off. The skill returns to an ungraded state and you can assign a grade normally.

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Marking a Skill as a Focus Area

Marking a skill as Focus signals to your manager that you want to prioritize developing that skill. To mark a skill as a Focus area:

1. In the Focus column, select the Make Focus icon (a circular outline icon).

When a skill is marked as Focus:

• The icon changes to a filled checkmark circle and the label reads Focus.
• The skill appears in your Highlights view in your Skills Profile.
• Your manager can see which skills you have marked as development priorities.

To remove the Focus designation, select the icon again. The icon returns to the outline state.

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Navigating Between Skills

You can move through the skills in your assessment in any order. Using the navigation buttons:

• Select Previous at the bottom of the page to go to the preceding skill.
• Select Next to advance to the next skill. The Next button is only active once the current skill has been graded or marked as Not Applicable.

Using the left sidebar:

• Select any skill in the left sidebar to jump directly to it, regardless of order.
• Skills that have been graded or marked N/A show a checkmark.

Using keyboard shortcuts:

• Press ← to move to the previous skill.
• Press → to move to the next skill.

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Submitting Your Assessment

You can only submit your assessment once all skills have been graded or marked as Not Applicable. When you select Next on the final skill (or press Enter), SkillsDB checks whether any skills remain ungraded. If ungraded skills exist: A modal appears listing all skills that still need a grade or N/A marking, grouped by job role. Select any skill in the list to navigate directly to it and complete your grade. If all skills are complete: A completion modal appears showing a summary of your assessment: To finalize and submit your assessment:

1. Review the summary in the completion modal.
2. Select Submit.

Your assessment is marked as Completed and you are redirected to your assessment scorecard. To return to grading without submitting, select Back. Your grades are saved and you can continue editing before submitting.

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Viewing your Results

After submitting, you are redirected to your Assessment Scorecard. You can also access the scorecard at any time by selecting a completed assessment from the Assessments list and selecting View Results. The scorecard shows:

• Your self-assessed grade for each skill
• Your manager’s grade for each skill (if your manager has completed their assessment and the administrator has configured manager grades to be visible)
• The benchmark grade for each skill in your role
• Visual comparison of your self-assessment against benchmark and manager grades

The scorecard is read-only. Grades cannot be changed after submission.

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Common Questions

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