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Some of this is "yes, I wish people understood that" to me, like: "It’s to make it as clear as possible which types of problems you’ve solved in the past, and

Some of this is "yes, I wish people understood that" to me, like: "It’s to make it as clear as possible which types of problems you’ve solved in the past, and how well you solved them." This is all I care about. I want to see the complexity of what you've handled. "As a result, their bullet points are full of sentences that begin “Responsible for” or “Worked on” or “Assigned to.”" These phrases have always struck me as meaning "I sat in the same building while these things were going on." But when the author suggests using numbers, those strike me as bs. I assume that success in moving numbers depends on what the starting point is. I'm sure I could walk into the typical high growth startup and find tons of places where I could get a 10x performance improvement, because they've been focused on other things. Is reducing AWS cost by 17% (from a low baseline) better than doubling AWS cost and allowing the team to make better decisions because the data is normalized and easily searchable?

mcenedella 6y ago
OP here. Thanks for the great comment. This made me laugh: "I sat in the same building while these things were going on." I agree with you that starting point matters, and that context matters - such as sometimes doubling AWS costs would be better. The nature of the advice is the science - using numbers factually works better. The nature of your feedback is the art - the types of accomplishments you choose to demonstrate reveals a lot about you as a professional. To take our example of the doubling AWS costs to make better decisions. Well, how can you quantify those were better decisions. If it's just by the feels, that's not as effective. If you can quantify it - Helped team make decisions that led to x% improvement through database normalization - that is more persuasive than simply saying "Improved team's decision making through database normalization." Hope that makes sense!

mcenedella 6y ago

OP here. Thanks for the great comment. This made me laugh: "I sat in the same building while these things were going on." I agree with you that starting point matters, and that context matters - such as sometimes doubling AWS costs would be better. The nature of the advice is the science - using numbers factually works better. The nature of your feedback is the art - the types of accomplishments you choose to demonstrate reveals a lot about you as a professional. To take our example of the doubling AWS costs to make better decisions. Well, how can you quantify those were better decisions. If it's just by the feels, that's not as effective. If you can quantify it - Helped team make decisions that led to x% improvement through database normalization - that is more persuasive than simply saying "Improved team's decision making through database normalization." Hope that makes sense!