Type in who the review is about and your notes on the period, good and bad. Hemmingway writes them up as a review under headings, each point naming what the person did and what came of it. It works for someone on your team and for a self-review, where it writes as you. You read it, correct it, and hand it over yourself.
It builds only on your notes. It will not make up an example to fill a heading, and it will not choose a rating. Where your notes are thin the review is thin too, which shows you what to go and check before the meeting.
What makes it work
- Keep notes through the year. A review written from memory covers the last six weeks.
- Write what happened, then what it caused. "Weekly report late three times this quarter, so finance had to chase" can be acted on. "Poor time management" cannot.
- Put the hard part plainly. It is told not to soften a problem into a hint, so give it the problem straight.
- In a self-review, claim the work. "I took over the rota in February", not "the rota was improved".
An example
Asked for a manager's review of Dami, a customer support lead, from notes saying she took over the rota in February and missed shifts fell, two new starters said her training was the best they had had, and her weekly report was late three times this quarter, with a goal of reports in by Friday each week, a review along these lines is what to expect:
What went well
You took over the rota in February, and missed shifts have fallen since. Two new starters said your training was the best they have had.
What needs to improve
Your weekly report was late three times this quarter.
Goals
Reports in by Friday each week.
Before you use it
A review can affect someone's pay and their job. Check every line against your own records and follow your organisation's process. A formal warning or a dismissal is a matter for HR or an employment lawyer, not an AI draft.
If your self-review leads to a pay conversation, the raise request generator and how to ask for a raise pick up from there.
Common questions
Is the performance review generator free?
Yes. Hemmingway has a free trial with no card needed, and this tool opens it with your answers filled in. You sign up once, and the review is written in the chat.
Can it write a self-review?
Yes. Put "myself" and your job in the first field and list what you did, including what went badly. It writes in the first person and uses only what you listed.
Should I put an employee's name into an AI tool?
Check your employer's rules first. A first name or initials work just as well. Hemmingway never trains its models on your chats, and the privacy page lists what is kept.
Will it sound like AI?
It is built not to. Hemmingway-1, the model behind it, came first on sounding like a person in our own blind test, Human-Likeness. A review should still sound like the manager who will sit across the table, so change the wording until it does.