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Why Your NSPS Self Assessment Matters To Your Retirement as a DoD Employee
By Kathryn K. Troutman, Federal Career Coach
It's fun to dream about retirement, especially what you'll do the first
month. Going nowhere except where you feel like going -- in the middle of
the day. Starting another career. Hangout with your spouse and your
grandkids. Great fun!
But, until you decide to give your retirement notice, you still have to
follow the rules. Very soon, if you work for the Department of
Defense (DoD) -- and if you are in a pay band -- then this means you
have to write your NSPS Self-Assessment.
Here are some incentives for writing your NSPS Self-Assessment and how it
relates to your retirement.
Incentive # 1: Build Your Bio
Think about the Self-Assessment as your short bio with your best ideas,
projects and performances for the year. Pretend that this short bio will get you
recognition and possibly make a difference before you leave the position into
retirement. Likely some of the things you did this year
did make a difference. These accomplishments can contribute
to your speaker's biography, consulting bio, contracting bio, or
your second career resume (if you choose to work full or part time
after retiring from the federal government).
Incentive # 2: It's a Rule and You Have to Do
It
For NSPS, you have to write it down. And it has to be written in an
organized, structured way. The supervisor gave you three objectives -- or
you wrote three objectives. You have to write two or
three things that you did to meet the mission under each of those
objectives.
Incentive # 3: Money. Your Shares Could Apply
Toward Salary (and Eventually Your Monthly Retirement Check)
Now, this is important because your pay pool share will be attributed to both
a bonus and salary (probably). Every extra dollar you earn will be good
for the monthly retirement numbers (the amount of your retirement annuity
is partly based on your high-three average salary, which is usually most
people's last three years of employment)
Getting Started
So, to get started, find your Interim Assessment and see if it includes all
of your best accomplishments for the year -- and since March of last year.
Look through your calendar and emails to get reminders about projects,
customers and problems you solved this year that would fall under those Job
Objectives.
Start a "Top Ten List of Accomplishments". Check out which
of them are the most impressive and begin to write more details of
these.
Think about your mission. Consider how each accomplishment
met the mission and if it helped somebody. Did it save time?
Money? Did it improve services?. .
Keep working on it. Your supervisor still has to write their
own assessment of your performance. The better you write about your performance,
the better the supervisor will concur and hopefully elaborate.
Go for a 3, and Strive for a 5
If you pay attention to the Performance Indicators and Contributing Factors,
you could try to make sure your accomplishments meet the Level 3 or Level 5
benchmarks. Strive for the best. Spend time on each accomplishment.
See Samples of Self-Assessment and Keywords
The publication, Writing Your NSPS
Self-Assessment, could help you with your document. You can order a
print book or download an e-Book with samples and instruction and insight into
the NSPS Self-Assessment. For more information on the book, go here.
About the Author
Kathryn K. Troutman, founder and president of the The Resume Place, Inc.,
is an internationally recognized book publisher and trainer for both
federal human resource specialists and federal employees. She is the pioneering
designer of the "Federal Resume" based on her flagship book, the Federal
Resume Guidebook.
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