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> Use high-level vague marketing speech like "helped reduce customers acquisition cost by $X" - The world is complex, who knows what that means in practice. I

> Use high-level vague marketing speech like "helped reduce customers acquisition cost by $X" - The world is complex, who knows what that means in practice. I agree that high-level buzzword-laden items in a resume are off-putting, but that example is actually concrete evidence that the candidate: 1) helped the business in a tangible, quantifiable way. (competent) 2) knows how their work was contributing to an important business metric. (aligned with business side)

gas9S9zw3P9c 6y ago
The problem with this is that there is no context. It's impossible to verify or evaluate what happened. Who knows what "helped" means. It could be fixing a bug in an open source software product that was eventually used to reduce CAC. Who knows. It's vague. The world is complex. There is rarely such a thing as a single person writing a few lines of code, and that code directly leading to $ savings. There are complex interactions and dependencies. Also, not all engineers are working on code that has measureable bottom-line impact, so these statements are only possible for a few. For example, an engineer refactoring old code can save a company millions over the lifespan of that code, and it would never show up as dollar values anywhere. On the other hand, someone can change a cell in an Excel spreadsheet that had a typo in it and save the company $100,000. Should I hire the person because they found a typo? These kind of statements with dollar values are meaningless because the reader is missing context. More often than not, they are vanity statements and come across as disingenuous. I'd rather have you describe what you actually did. A better example would be "Architected and implemented new real-time event messaging infrastructure using technologies X and Y that allowed us to move of expensive SaaS service Z and save $$.", or something like that. At least that tells me what you did, but even here the $ value is meaningless.
- craftinator 6y ago
  > The problem with this is that there is no context. It's impossible to verify or evaluate what happened. Who knows what "helped" means. It could be fixing a bug in an open source software Which is the worst thing about modern hiring practices.
- pesfandiar 6y ago
  > The problem with this is that there is no context. It's impossible to verify or evaluate what happened. This is usually what a first stage phone interview is for, especially if that piece of information is critical for the hiring decision. I agree the wording should be more precise about the capacity in which the candidate helped, but there's also a balance to strike between providing that context and brevity (which is valuable in resumes).
- 1123581321 6y ago
  Tangentially, people who catch typos tend to be good employees.

gas9S9zw3P9c 6y ago

The problem with this is that there is no context. It's impossible to verify or evaluate what happened. Who knows what "helped" means. It could be fixing a bug in an open source software product that was eventually used to reduce CAC. Who knows. It's vague. The world is complex. There is rarely such a thing as a single person writing a few lines of code, and that code directly leading to $ savings. There are complex interactions and dependencies. Also, not all engineers are working on code that has measureable bottom-line impact, so these statements are only possible for a few. For example, an engineer refactoring old code can save a company millions over the lifespan of that code, and it would never show up as dollar values anywhere. On the other hand, someone can change a cell in an Excel spreadsheet that had a typo in it and save the company $100,000. Should I hire the person because they found a typo? These kind of statements with dollar values are meaningless because the reader is missing context. More often than not, they are vanity statements and come across as disingenuous. I'd rather have you describe what you actually did. A better example would be "Architected and implemented new real-time event messaging infrastructure using technologies X and Y that allowed us to move of expensive SaaS service Z and save $$.", or something like that. At least that tells me what you did, but even here the $ value is meaningless.

craftinator 6y ago
> The problem with this is that there is no context. It's impossible to verify or evaluate what happened. Who knows what "helped" means. It could be fixing a bug in an open source software Which is the worst thing about modern hiring practices.
pesfandiar 6y ago
> The problem with this is that there is no context. It's impossible to verify or evaluate what happened. This is usually what a first stage phone interview is for, especially if that piece of information is critical for the hiring decision. I agree the wording should be more precise about the capacity in which the candidate helped, but there's also a balance to strike between providing that context and brevity (which is valuable in resumes).
1123581321 6y ago
Tangentially, people who catch typos tend to be good employees.