site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   2422 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 28, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

How do you advertise merit?

I've had some extremely impactful projects at my first job. I got promoted from Junior Engineer within a year, etc. currently I'm on track to become a Senior in 6 months. It's my first job and I'm 1.5 years out of college fwiw.

Honestly, Idk how to convey any of this to new employers. How do I even explain what made my work good without giving away trade secrets???

I don't want to rack up YOE at one company and fall back onto a regular career trajectory with a job switch.

Whenever possible, document the money that your initiatives and projects either saved your employer, or earned for your employer. State it in easy to digest terms. I like STAR format: Situation, Task, Actions, Results.

ex: As a senior risk management and transaction compliance manager, I initiated project Waste Not, where I initiated an org wide SOP review which identified over 80k redundant investigations per year under current processes. After eliminating this waste and streamlining our processes our org saved 6mil USD on operational costs YOY compared to the previous process state.

Keep it simple and easy to understand when spoken in an interview. Have supporting docs if you can (this is often not possible with NDAs).

If its not a cost saving/revenue generating position, find some other way to quantify impact in easy to communicate ways. If you took lead on a big project that got attention in the press, you can usually use your companies own press releases without violating your NDA (I'd hope anyway)

  1. Say what you said about how you've been quickly promoted within your first couple of years out of college.

  2. Explain what you accomplished without revealing how you did it; "I came up with a new testing process that reduced our testing costs by 5%" or whatever.

Early promotion to "Senior" is an objective fact which is legitimately impressive. If your current employer is reasonably well-known in your industry, then your next employer will know just how impressive it is.

Just... Write down the details of what you've done in a work journal. Update it quarterly. I've done so much awesome shit in the past 10 years where the details have faded away, and I hate it.

Just put some numbers/stats and keywords that sound impressive, at a lot of companies HR department, which is where your resume gets initially parsed, won't even have the knowledge to understand technical jargon. Also, most companies put the resumes through a filter before human eyes ever look at it, which is why you should try to match keywords to job postings.

If you're lucky enough to talk to an actual human, if the person isn't technical you wouldn't be able to divulge "trade secrets" even accidentally, and if they are technical you should be able to prove your competence by just talking with them.

Honestly I wouldn't worry about it too much, I highly doubt what you've worked on would qualify as trade secrets that you absolutely cannot divulge, and on the chance that it actually is the case, well your company should've thought twice before assigning a junior engineer with that kind of work.

As an engineering manager, I would advise against putting impressive-sounding stats and keywords in your resume if you can't back them up. The resume is the only thing I know about the candidate before talking to them, so I scan it for various impressive-sounding stats and keywords to use as starting points for the discussion.

If the candidate sputters out when I throw stuff from their own resume at them, it's a no-hire.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats