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I hate this advice so much, even if it's true that it works. How many people actually have any sort of knowledge of (or access to) such measurements? If you're

I hate this advice so much, even if it's true that it works. How many people actually have any sort of knowledge of (or access to) such measurements? If you're in sales or management, great, but the bulk of the workforce, especially those who desperately need their next resume to land them a half-decent job fast, are not in such positions. Even as a developer, I've had exactly one gig where I had access to quantifiable results. Customer X was losing $Y per week, and when I provided a solution plugging problem Z... well, that's that. Some customers and employers are rather cagey about leaking finance data. Even if they were wide open about my impact, I'd have to stick around a few extra years to see the result.

sotojuan 9y ago
I'm engineer and I've had direct knowledge of how my work has impacted other departments. I don't even have to ask - sales or ops will just say "thanks to X project, we reduced touch time by 30%" at all hands or general meetings. I can't imagine working at a place that hides this info from either the engineers or most of the company.
gggdvnkhmbgjvbn 9y ago
Doesnt have to be about money. I reduced page load times by x%, measured it with the chrome inspector network tab and it was brought up in an interview.
enraged_camel 9y ago
You should always strive to measure the impact of your work. Always. And if you can't measure it, you should ask your users for ballpark estimates. "Hey George, how many minutes a day does the new feature I added save you?" From there you can convert it to an estimated average financial impact fairly easily.
- bsjob 9y ago
  So by that point, I've already made like three things up because there's absolutely no way for them to fact check this nonsense. Why talk to George when I can just pull something out of my ass? "Yeah, the process totally saved a half hour every week, which is about $500 because BUSINESS. Good luck verifying that, asshole."
  - enraged_camel 9y ago
    Wait, so you think that when you say "I made the process 13% more efficient and saved the company $12.5 million dollars" that they actually call the company to verify? >>Why talk to George when I can just pull something out of my ass? Because lying is bad? I mean when you talk to George you are at least making a good faith effort to come up with a realistic estimate (which you would be honest in your resume by using words like "approximately" for instance). That's preferable if you have no other way to calculate the business impact of your work.
- sdiupIGPWEfh 9y ago
  And at the end of some successful two year project, having moved on to a new position at a new company, am I to call George back a few years later and ask for him to leak me info about my project's impact, assuming George still works there himself?
SirZimzim 9y ago
Yeah 30% is not a "hard number", I use this stuff on my resume but only because I know the people who read them are not like me.

sotojuan 9y ago

I'm engineer and I've had direct knowledge of how my work has impacted other departments. I don't even have to ask - sales or ops will just say "thanks to X project, we reduced touch time by 30%" at all hands or general meetings. I can't imagine working at a place that hides this info from either the engineers or most of the company.

gggdvnkhmbgjvbn 9y ago

Doesnt have to be about money. I reduced page load times by x%, measured it with the chrome inspector network tab and it was brought up in an interview.

enraged_camel 9y ago

You should always strive to measure the impact of your work. Always. And if you can't measure it, you should ask your users for ballpark estimates. "Hey George, how many minutes a day does the new feature I added save you?" From there you can convert it to an estimated average financial impact fairly easily.

bsjob 9y ago
So by that point, I've already made like three things up because there's absolutely no way for them to fact check this nonsense. Why talk to George when I can just pull something out of my ass? "Yeah, the process totally saved a half hour every week, which is about $500 because BUSINESS. Good luck verifying that, asshole."
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  Wait, so you think that when you say "I made the process 13% more efficient and saved the company $12.5 million dollars" that they actually call the company to verify? >>Why talk to George when I can just pull something out of my ass? Because lying is bad? I mean when you talk to George you are at least making a good faith effort to come up with a realistic estimate (which you would be honest in your resume by using words like "approximately" for instance). That's preferable if you have no other way to calculate the business impact of your work.
sdiupIGPWEfh 9y ago
And at the end of some successful two year project, having moved on to a new position at a new company, am I to call George back a few years later and ask for him to leak me info about my project's impact, assuming George still works there himself?

SirZimzim 9y ago

Yeah 30% is not a "hard number", I use this stuff on my resume but only because I know the people who read them are not like me.