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At first you say: “No one reads resumes” Then follow up with the age-old advice: Your resume should talk about results. Don't say "Created a new CMS for the c

At first you say: “No one reads resumes” Then follow up with the age-old advice: Your resume should talk about results. Don't say "Created a new CMS for the company". Say "Created a new CMS for the company in Python that resulted in an ~70% reduction in website update times, from 1 hour to 18 minutes." My take: I’m actually not convinced anyone cares too much about those numbers in a resume. Great topics to probe in an interview, but not much of a signal on a resume. Reason being: they’re easy to fluff and are almost always inflated bs. I do agree with all of your other points

jedberg 4y ago
Further down I said "they skim for technologies and read around that". So in my example, I'd be skimming and see "Python" and then read around it. And also, as you said, the resume drives the interview, so they are good jumping off points and that's why they are there.
cableshaft 4y ago
> Reason being: they’re easy to fluff and are almost always inflated bs. Not only that, but how would engineers, for example, know how much money was saved or earned from blah feature or project unless that was explicitly shared with them? Time saved or usage can usually be measured by the engineer, but money is a lot trickier. Like I'm able to say a speech application I made was used in over a million calls, because I looked at the database and saw that many call records in there. And I'm able to say that I set up an one-click 30 minute devops process for deployment that was previously done over the span of 4-8 hours manually with multiple engineers onhand in case things went wrong (and they often did due to user error), because I was physically present during those manual processes and could directly compare and contrast the time difference. But I can't say it "saved the company X million dollars" or whatever because I wasn't in management and didn't have those figures shared with me. At least not honestly. I could make some bullshit up (I don't, but I could), like you said, and how are you going to verify it? Do you think a past employer will confirm or deny those figures if you call? You'd be lucky to get much more than confirmation that I worked for them and what dates at this point, thanks to all the liability around it. Also there's no guarantee that they know (or remember offhand) themselves, maybe they weren't on that project.
- lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  You can come up with decent figures. And i think it is worth it not just for a resume but monthly lookbacks So multiple engineers on hand for 8 hours - let's say 5 engineers. That's 5 person days. A deployment a month (cos anything that painful gets done less often) gives 60 person days, at something like 2x daily salary of engineer (assume 500pd for easy maths) and you saved company 60,000 usd a year whilst increasing reliablity and speed. Nice one
- jedberg 4y ago
  Not all of them have to be money related. > Like I'm able to say a speech application I made was used in over a million calls, because I looked at the database and saw that many call records in there. And I'm able to say that I set up an one-click 30 minute devops process for deployment that was previously done over the span of 4-8 hours manually with multiple engineers onhand in case things went wrong (and they often did due to user error), because I was physically present during those manual processes and could directly compare and contrast the time difference. These are both perfect for a resume. They are quantified and measurable and would be interesting to talk about in an interview. For example, I'd probably ask you what tools you used to set up your 30 minute deployment process and what they were using before and how you managed such a huge gain. I would ask you how you built your voice application to scale to a million calls. These are both great for a resume. They don't all have to involve money.
  - cableshaft 4y ago
    Yeah, they are both bullet points on my resume, actually. But there are several jobs where I can't quite say this. Like I worked on several games that didn't do well in the market (for various non-technical reasons), so I know I can't brag about saving money or time or usage for the company, but I learned a lot of skills by being on those projects, so I benefitted personally in ways that could help the prospective company out. In fact I might have gotten more skills from those projects than that speech application, for example, despite that one being used a ton. So I don't really have anything better I can say there than "did this this and this on the project, lead X number of people, etc", which are basically the 'responsible for...' bullets that everyone advises against including on a resume. Also in case you're curious, I set up the process by using Octopus Deploy and several custom Powershell scripts after an audit of their existing processes and all the various information for all the servers, firewall settings, windows services, database snapshots and schema migrations, etc (there was a lot, each major system had like 40+ steps to it by the time they were done) etc. Before the engineering director of the department would lock himself in his office and execute .BAT scripts one by one from a terminal and copy files and other things manually, while everyone else chilled in the main office, waiting (usually around 4-5 people). If anything ever went wrong, and usually it did, it would take several engineers to investigate and help revert things if necessary. It was a mess. They knew it was a bad process, and had previously had another developer start investigating how to make things better using Octopus Deploy, and he gave up and quit the company and KT'd to me that it was impossible, no one was cooperating with him, he couldn't get the information needed, and well... I didn't have his experience and think he just didn't want to do it. I had everything working for several processes (and we set up more and more over time after we had things working) in about the same time as he spent accomplishing very little (I started with his setup), and I didn't know anything about Octopus Deploy and barely anything about DevOps beforehand.
parkersweb 4y ago
I recently saw a CV with a very specific claim about developer efficiency improvements brought about by their introduction of a design system to the product. I was instantly put off - because while it might be true there’s just way too many variables to claim a 68% improvement was down to your design system.

jedberg 4y ago

Further down I said "they skim for technologies and read around that". So in my example, I'd be skimming and see "Python" and then read around it. And also, as you said, the resume drives the interview, so they are good jumping off points and that's why they are there.

cableshaft 4y ago

> Reason being: they’re easy to fluff and are almost always inflated bs. Not only that, but how would engineers, for example, know how much money was saved or earned from blah feature or project unless that was explicitly shared with them? Time saved or usage can usually be measured by the engineer, but money is a lot trickier. Like I'm able to say a speech application I made was used in over a million calls, because I looked at the database and saw that many call records in there. And I'm able to say that I set up an one-click 30 minute devops process for deployment that was previously done over the span of 4-8 hours manually with multiple engineers onhand in case things went wrong (and they often did due to user error), because I was physically present during those manual processes and could directly compare and contrast the time difference. But I can't say it "saved the company X million dollars" or whatever because I wasn't in management and didn't have those figures shared with me. At least not honestly. I could make some bullshit up (I don't, but I could), like you said, and how are you going to verify it? Do you think a past employer will confirm or deny those figures if you call? You'd be lucky to get much more than confirmation that I worked for them and what dates at this point, thanks to all the liability around it. Also there's no guarantee that they know (or remember offhand) themselves, maybe they weren't on that project.

lifeisstillgood 4y ago
You can come up with decent figures. And i think it is worth it not just for a resume but monthly lookbacks So multiple engineers on hand for 8 hours - let's say 5 engineers. That's 5 person days. A deployment a month (cos anything that painful gets done less often) gives 60 person days, at something like 2x daily salary of engineer (assume 500pd for easy maths) and you saved company 60,000 usd a year whilst increasing reliablity and speed. Nice one
jedberg 4y ago
Not all of them have to be money related. > Like I'm able to say a speech application I made was used in over a million calls, because I looked at the database and saw that many call records in there. And I'm able to say that I set up an one-click 30 minute devops process for deployment that was previously done over the span of 4-8 hours manually with multiple engineers onhand in case things went wrong (and they often did due to user error), because I was physically present during those manual processes and could directly compare and contrast the time difference. These are both perfect for a resume. They are quantified and measurable and would be interesting to talk about in an interview. For example, I'd probably ask you what tools you used to set up your 30 minute deployment process and what they were using before and how you managed such a huge gain. I would ask you how you built your voice application to scale to a million calls. These are both great for a resume. They don't all have to involve money.
- cableshaft 4y ago
  Yeah, they are both bullet points on my resume, actually. But there are several jobs where I can't quite say this. Like I worked on several games that didn't do well in the market (for various non-technical reasons), so I know I can't brag about saving money or time or usage for the company, but I learned a lot of skills by being on those projects, so I benefitted personally in ways that could help the prospective company out. In fact I might have gotten more skills from those projects than that speech application, for example, despite that one being used a ton. So I don't really have anything better I can say there than "did this this and this on the project, lead X number of people, etc", which are basically the 'responsible for...' bullets that everyone advises against including on a resume. Also in case you're curious, I set up the process by using Octopus Deploy and several custom Powershell scripts after an audit of their existing processes and all the various information for all the servers, firewall settings, windows services, database snapshots and schema migrations, etc (there was a lot, each major system had like 40+ steps to it by the time they were done) etc. Before the engineering director of the department would lock himself in his office and execute .BAT scripts one by one from a terminal and copy files and other things manually, while everyone else chilled in the main office, waiting (usually around 4-5 people). If anything ever went wrong, and usually it did, it would take several engineers to investigate and help revert things if necessary. It was a mess. They knew it was a bad process, and had previously had another developer start investigating how to make things better using Octopus Deploy, and he gave up and quit the company and KT'd to me that it was impossible, no one was cooperating with him, he couldn't get the information needed, and well... I didn't have his experience and think he just didn't want to do it. I had everything working for several processes (and we set up more and more over time after we had things working) in about the same time as he spent accomplishing very little (I started with his setup), and I didn't know anything about Octopus Deploy and barely anything about DevOps beforehand.

parkersweb 4y ago

I recently saw a CV with a very specific claim about developer efficiency improvements brought about by their introduction of a design system to the product. I was instantly put off - because while it might be true there’s just way too many variables to claim a 68% improvement was down to your design system.