Claim Credit For Your Work!

The number one mistake I see candidates make both in their application materials (resume, cover letter) and in interviewing is that they discuss projects and work, but are exceptionally unclear about the scope and nature of their individual contributions. Here’s why this is a high impact mistake, and how to avoid it.

Why Is This a Problem?

1.      It seems like you’re hiding behind a group or team: The group worked on this. The team completed these milestones. Guess what? Your group isn’t applying to the job. The team isn’t being interviewed. You are. The nature of what your teammates did is not important beyond the context of how your work fit into the bigger picture.

2.      Your own technical contributions and therefore abilities are unclear: Did you do real time testing, or did your group? Did you analyze the structure, or did you just sit in on analysis tag ups? Did you help install the new valves, or did you stand and watch while a technician did it? In the absence of clarity, you can’t always assume your evaluators will make generous assumptions.

3.      It makes it appear as though you struggle to explain your work: In most jobs, you will be communicating your work and progress to some sort of outside party: your client, your boss, an adjacent team, etc. If you aren’t even on the job and are already struggling to communicate your work, it doesn’t bode well.

How to Avoid This

1.      Use active, precise language: The words ‘contributed’ ‘participated’ ‘supported’ ‘partook in’ and ‘saw’ shouldn’t appear anywhere in your application materials. Replace these with more precise options such as ‘analyzed’ ‘designed’ ‘tested’ ‘coded’ ‘installed’ ‘led’ ‘calculated’ ‘modeled’ ‘simulated’ or whatever precise verb describes your task.

2.      Focus on your specific contribution: If you have one bullet point to describe what your team was doing during a project, fine. But then immediately follow that up with what you specifically did. If your team designed and built a rover prototype, it’s ok to list that as long as you include what parts or processes you were responsible for.

3.      Include details such as quantifiable metrics and software: Details such as quantity, method, in what software, timeframe, cost, and impact provide a higher resolution picture of your work.

Let’s take a look at some examples.

·        BAD: Participated in rover prototype project.

·        BETTER: Sized, designed, modeled, and analyzed twenty-five chassis components in Solidworks and FEMAP for mars rover prototype.

·        BAD: Helped test supplier valves

·        BETTER: Wrote and executed test plan for hydraulic valves from seven suppliers across ten months, presented results informing a 1.2 million dollar customer contract

·        BAD: Led cleanroom team

·        BETTER: Managed schedule, training, certifications, and performance management for a team of 12 electro-optical technicians, observing ISO 8 cleanroom protocols and operating in an electro-static risk environment.

The bottom line is that you give yourself the best chance when you’re exceptionally precise and clear about what you’ve done and what you bring to the table. Make sure you’re not underselling yourself by omitting critical information.

Have you seen any examples of this when interviewing candidates? Made any of these mistakes yourself? Let me know at YourSTEMMentorBlog@gmail.com!