Resume Critique
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What happened to staying on topic?
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Also, success is limited. Avoiding failure should be unlimited. The number of failures that are avoided every day have no limit. Take this example... not only did we not avoid buying 16 servers, we avoided buying 17, 18, 19..... the number of horrendous decisions that were not made are literally unlimited. Why pick this one failure that was avoided to brag about and not all of those?
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@black3dynamite said in Resume Critique:
What happened to staying on topic?
We are totally on topic of who to write a CV.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
So, we should assume all companies only ever make the correct decision and an IT employee never has to use their competence to steep a company in the correct direction, or discuss that they prevented the failure entirely, in SAM land? Crazy.
This not a logical point to have reached.
This shows how much the taxi and brick wall example holds. You feel that total incompetence isn't just common enough, but that avoiding it alone is enough to brag about.
Yes it is. Avoiding incompetence and going things the correct way, when before you the incorrect way was planned... Is something to brag about. 100%
So literally you now agree with my taxi / wall example?
No. The taxi/wall example was awful.
I'm disagreement with you. I'm saying sterile away from something bad to something good is worth bragging about.
You are saying it should have never remember bad to need to make that change. Well in a perfect world of course. But the world isn't perfect, an stopping the mistake is a success. And should be on the CV.
Saying that's not good as is should never have been wrong is just bollocks. Things go wrong, showing you can make them go the correct way is important.
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What a hiring manager or new company cares about:
- That you know technical things or have skills and experience (e.g. I can do this thing.)
- That you make good decisions and have good understanding (e.g. I think well about things.)
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@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
So, we should assume all companies only ever make the correct decision and an IT employee never has to use their competence to steep a company in the correct direction, or discuss that they prevented the failure entirely, in SAM land? Crazy.
This not a logical point to have reached.
This shows how much the taxi and brick wall example holds. You feel that total incompetence isn't just common enough, but that avoiding it alone is enough to brag about.
Yes it is. Avoiding incompetence and going things the correct way, when before you the incorrect way was planned... Is something to brag about. 100%
So literally you now agree with my taxi / wall example?
No. The taxi/wall example was awful.
So is the cost savings in the Hyper-V scenario. I keep bringing up the taxi to show you how bad the Hyper-V example is.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
Right now, your suggestion for the CV is not to show success, but to show avoidance of total failure. Don't you see how those are not the same things?
Driving a taxi well, improving over baseline, doing things that aren't just expected as part of "showing up" - that's success in differing degrees.
Not driving into walls, people and lampposts is just "avoiding failure."
We brag about success, we don't brag about avoiding failure.
No, it's to show success, an why it was a success.
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@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
I'm disagreement with you. I'm saying sterile away from something bad to something good is worth bragging about.
Like the taxi. You can't have it both ways.
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@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
Saying that's not good as is should never have been wrong is just bollocks. Things go wrong, showing you can make them go the correct way is important.
This doesn't make any logical sense. It doesn't show that at all. It shows that disaster was avoided. It doesn't show why or by whom. Only that the CV writer wasn't a cause of the disaster. We don't know who proposed the consolidation, why the failure was considered, who made the decision or based on what criteria. It shows nothing positive about the CV writer at all, only that they didn't sabotage the project themselves by refusing to consolidate.
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@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
Right now, your suggestion for the CV is not to show success, but to show avoidance of total failure. Don't you see how those are not the same things?
Driving a taxi well, improving over baseline, doing things that aren't just expected as part of "showing up" - that's success in differing degrees.
Not driving into walls, people and lampposts is just "avoiding failure."
We brag about success, we don't brag about avoiding failure.
No, it's to show success, an why it was a success.
There is no success in the example, only one specific failure avoided. Like I said, if you want to lower the bar for success to that degree - you've created exactly the situation that I hope to avoid - making the CV writer look terrible. The last thing you want in a CV is a "lowering of the bar".
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Let's abstract it a different way. Here is what I think you are trying to say in super general terms:
"Many people are idiots, and many companies do foolish things. There was one specific possibility of a really idiotic thing at my last job. But it didn't actually happen. Therefore I'm less of an idiot than I might have been."
That's all that comes across and I think that that is actually what you are trying to say is a success. Nothing I never called the CV writer an idiot, just less of an idiot than might have been if they didn't avoid that one simple, obvious failure. We don't know how good they are, nothing tells us what they did right, only what they didn't do wrong. And that it is only because some companies and some people are so incredible idiotic that we need to point this out because otherwise, the assumption might be that the CV writing is one of those people.
Correct?
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Or another way to look at it: "I worked for idiots, but I prevented some of their idiocy this one time. But it was a near thing, because they are idiots."
Using "I work for idiots but am not as idiotic as some of them" as a way to promote oneself just doesn't come across well. Imagine bragging about this at the bar..........
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We do this all fo the time in IT. We are having drinks and we talk about how dumb things are at work. But it isn't bragging, it is relieving frustration. We talk about how they lack common sense or just do stupid things. It's not to make ourselves look good, because we can't in that context. We don't look smart by being smarter than idiots, we just deserve pity for having to put up with them.
When you are at the bar bragging to your mates about some amazing accomplishment, it is totally different. You have to beat the minimal industry baseline to sound impressive. Putting up with idiots in management or coworkers is just part of putting up with people that we do every day.
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Example. I recently cut a company's development time in half. Saving them a fortune on employee costs and getting them to market way faster. Do I brag about it? No, because I didn't do anything impressive. I just showed them that fundamental good decision making was better than picking random gibberish out of their butts. I didn't fail, but I certainly can't brag about the decisions that I made. Sure, I'm better than the people who were making the decisions before. But their decisions were failures. They aren't to be used as a serious measurement for success on my part. For me to call that a success means I have to lower my own value to a level of being totally pathetic in order for that to be impressive - that's a big price to pay, lowering my own level so that one avoidance of failure looks like "a success by my personal standards."
That's what will happen with the CV. It drags down the person in order to make one small decision warrant being considered a success. Overall, it's a huge loss for one small win. It's like totally scrapping the war in order to win one tiny battle.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
Saying that's not good as is should never have been wrong is just bollocks. Things go wrong, showing you can make them go the correct way is important.
This doesn't make any logical sense. It doesn't show that at all. It shows that disaster was avoided. It doesn't show why or by whom. Only that the CV writer wasn't a cause of the disaster. We don't know who proposed the consolidation, why the failure was considered, who made the decision or based on what criteria. It shows nothing positive about the CV writer at all, only that they didn't sabotage the project themselves by refusing to consolidate.
No. The fact that they are saying they consolidated using hyper-v, and if they why they did it, does show that the CV writer did it. Entirely.
And yes on your other points. Saying you stopped an idiot doing something idiotic by doing the great thing you did and Ankit that idiotic thing turn in to a successful thing... Is what should be shown. Saying goodbye Hyper-V tells me nothing...
Why is Hyper-V on the CV. The why makes you go to the yes pile. The word on its own sends out to the no pile.
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@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
Saying that's not good as is should never have been wrong is just bollocks. Things go wrong, showing you can make them go the correct way is important.
This doesn't make any logical sense. It doesn't show that at all. It shows that disaster was avoided. It doesn't show why or by whom. Only that the CV writer wasn't a cause of the disaster. We don't know who proposed the consolidation, why the failure was considered, who made the decision or based on what criteria. It shows nothing positive about the CV writer at all, only that they didn't sabotage the project themselves by refusing to consolidate.
No. The fact that they are saying they consolidated using hyper-v, and if they why they did it, does show that the CV writer did it. Entirely.
It doesn't even mention or suggest that. It shows that they did the work, not that they made or influenced the decision.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
Example. I recently cut a company's development time in half. Saving them a fortune on employee costs and getting them to market way faster. Do I brag about it? No, because I didn't do anything impressive. I just showed them that fundamental good decision making was better than picking random gibberish out of their butts. I didn't fail, but I certainly can't brag about the decisions that I made. Sure, I'm better than the people who were making the decisions before. But their decisions were failures. They aren't to be used as a serious measurement for success on my part. For me to call that a success means I have to lower my own value to a level of being totally pathetic in order for that to be impressive - that's a big price to pay, lowering my own level so that one avoidance of failure looks like "a success by my personal standards."
That's what will happen with the CV. It drags down the person in order to make one small decision warrant being considered a success. Overall, it's a huge loss for one small win. It's like totally scrapping the war in order to win one tiny battle.
No. Showing you changed that failure to a success saving so much cash an time is a success, and is something you should brag about.
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@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
Why is Hyper-V on the CV.
To show experience that is likely of value to the employer reading the CV.
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@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
No. Showing you changed that failure to a success saving so much cash an time is a success, and is something you should brag about.
I didn't make it a success. I just avoided failure. There is nothing worth bragging about there, I just followed industry baseline. It would be totally embarassing for me if I bragged about and people pointed out that all I did was the "normal starting point" for a project of that nature.
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@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
@scottalanmiller said in Resume Critique:
@jimmy9008 said in Resume Critique:
Saying that's not good as is should never have been wrong is just bollocks. Things go wrong, showing you can make them go the correct way is important.
This doesn't make any logical sense. It doesn't show that at all. It shows that disaster was avoided. It doesn't show why or by whom. Only that the CV writer wasn't a cause of the disaster. We don't know who proposed the consolidation, why the failure was considered, who made the decision or based on what criteria. It shows nothing positive about the CV writer at all, only that they didn't sabotage the project themselves by refusing to consolidate.
No. The fact that they are saying they consolidated using hyper-v, and if they why they did it, does show that the CV writer did it. Entirely.
It doesn't even mention or suggest that. It shows that they did the work, not that they made or influenced the decision.
That's why I'm saying 'consolidated saving X per year'. That to me says you did it. Other it's not be written.
