Truly one of the most gratifying and uplifting things is to have your own boss tell you to rate yourself higher on your “self evaluation”. Fortunately, this occurance was part of a less formal “if you have time, would you scan my eval before I hand it to the people that hold the money?” sort of critique.
I think it is natural to slightly undersell oneself in the areas of your professional development where one feels less secure. For me, I already know I can hold my own in visual/graphic design, typography, color theory, and general aesthetics. I even know a good deal about accessibility design and assistive devices for the web, thanks to my current project. I’m becoming even more sharp to the nuance of clean and intuitive interaction design. However, I have this incredibly bad habit of selling myself short(er) when I evaluate my technical prowess. Luckily my manager could see past the wishy-wash commentary, and pointed to the solid historical examples throughout the project where I came to bat for the other developers. The thing is I know better; and I am a competent web developer….I just keep sabotaging myself on paper.
Good to know someone else has got my back. And for once in my career, there isn’t a knife stuck in the middle of it.