Question About Quantifying Bullet Points On Resume

aderon

This is a really specific question and I should probably just create a resume review thread, but I've been going through my resume trying to quantify the bullet points I use for my job descriptions. The bullet point I'm having difficulty with is:

"Boosted department productivity by developing several bash scripts to automate complex tasks and streamline completion of technical support cases"

So, I did some testing and with one of the scripts that I developed for a particular kind of case, I was able to reduce case completion time from 15 minutes 40 seconds to 18 seconds on the high end and from 1 minute 50 seconds to 5 seconds on the low end.

High End: 5122.222222222222% Increase
Low End: 2100% Increase
Average: 3611.111111111% Increase

How do I word the bullet point, such that it shows the improvement I made, but without sounding ridiculous by having an absurdly high percentage increase in productivity (3611% average)? It sounds like I'm lying or that I don't know how to calculate percentages (which may be true, I was using a percentage increase calculator I found online lol).

jibbajabba

You could leave out the % and just mention the times.

Having said that, without any background, the times are irrelevant I think

Whilst you could say

• Development of a bash script to reduce case completion times from 15 Minutes to 18 Seconds

And let them calculate it - case completion could mean anything really

Could do something like

Automation and Streamlining Support Systems using bash

• Reduce ticket closure times, such as alert acknowledgements, from minutes to seconds
• Automate closure of re-occurring tickets and duplicates
• Increase productivity through automating complex tasks, such as making coffee using 5 beans
• Automate ticket re-assignments based on keyword searches using cookie dough
• Something else I cannot think of

Etc. etc. I get you want to shine by your achievements, but I don't see it works without having the reader any background information. It would work for an application internally, but externally you need to give the reader something to associate with.

aderon

I actually really like the idea of breaking it down into the various scripts like you did. I'll work with that and see what I come up with. Also 5 bean coffee sounds terrible