Abstract: The effectiveness of performance appraisal has been a debatable issue for decades as it affects various factors in an employee’s career such as rewards, training and more importantly, promotions. This study therefore discusses the perception of the Malaysian Administrative and Diplomatic Service Officers on the current performance appraisal system, focusing at appraisal understanding and satisfaction as well as rater’s characteristics and dissatisfaction by diplomatic officers. This study employed a survey convenience sampling 106 respondents or 28.7% of the population sampling responded out of the 370 questionnaires sent out to the government offices. Descriptive analysis was used to describe the findings of the survey. The research finding revealed that a majority of the diplomatic officers agreed that the purpose of appraisal is generally for promotions and agreed that their superiors should be the ones to grade them, although grading by peers was agreed by half of the respondents. Although, understanding the appraisal was not an issue, the satisfaction of the current appraisal system was low generally. Where rating method is concerned most of the officers agreed that rating based on attributing good or poor performance is based on specific behaviors of ratee. However, a high percentage of the officers agreed that favoritism tops the list in areas where biasness may occur and subjectivity of the current system is an issue to address. From the open ended questions, the finding also indicated that there are dissatisfactions regarding the current system and recommendations have been suggested by the officers to overcome these problems. This study is relevant to ascertain the perception of the diplomatic officers on the current performance appraisal system and thus help the management to realize the dissatisfaction of the system. Although, there were some limitations, it did not affect the validity of the data. Thus, the information obtained is vital for the policy makers to improve the current system.