I think about it more as general advice about getting a job instead of just the resume steps, but it fits in with the "talk about what you did, rather than what you were told to do" thoughts: You only ever get hired when you can convince the team that they can trust you to do the job.
A lot of the advice about phrasing (and quantifying) work history is a specific version of that. For different versions of a simple example...
"Responsible for development on flagship application" could mean anything. Maybe you did substantial work, but all you're saying is that you were told to be there and may not have.
"Fixed bugs on and added features to flagship application" acknowledges that you did real work, but it could refer to a few days of work.
"Fixed an average of W bugs per week and led development on feature X on application with Y users, which eliminated Z support calls" is maybe more detail than anybody is going to read, but it's crystal clear what you did.
Here's the optimization problem (for lack of a better term) that makes this harder than a formula: For everything that you've worked on, somewhere along this spectrum based partly on how old the job is in your history, along with estimated attention spans and what you actually did, there's a level of specificity that most clearly says "for the cost of my salary and benefits, this is what you can trust me to accomplish."
I think about it more as general advice about getting a job instead of just the resume steps, but it fits in with the "talk about what you did, rather than what you were told to do" thoughts: You only ever get hired when you can convince the team that they can trust you to do the job.
A lot of the advice about phrasing (and quantifying) work history is a specific version of that. For different versions of a simple example...
Here's the optimization problem (for lack of a better term) that makes this harder than a formula: For everything that you've worked on, somewhere along this spectrum based partly on how old the job is in your history, along with estimated attention spans and what you actually did, there's a level of specificity that most clearly says "for the cost of my salary and benefits, this is what you can trust me to accomplish."
Great article, it's really important to talk about your accomplishments on your resume. Thanks for sharing.