Sheldon by the Numbers…Quality is a Quantity all its Own

If, like me, you’re a job seeker, a long-term job seeker (waaaaay before Covid), undoubtedly you’ve been reading every bit of “advice for job seekers” out there, some of which makes sense, some of which just makes you scratch your head wondering on what body of credible evidence such advice is based. The overarching question that continues to nag me in my quest for suitable employment: does anyone with any credibility really know what it takes to secure a meaningful position that isn’t part of the gig economy, one that is full-time (remote or not), and has some sort of benefits attached? They’re out there, I’ve seen them, I’ve applied to them so availability isn’t the problem. To be honest, I never envisioned ten years in the gig economy as the desired outcome of my very expensive graduate education (Ed.M., M.A., and Ph.D.), but here we are. Frankly, I think only those who write the on-line application algorithms or are hiring managers/decision-makers know the answer to that question, and they’re not telling lest we see what really goes on under the hood. Some of the advice offered revolves around networking, networking, and more networking, which for a relative introvert like me is somewhat discomfiting, daunting, and perplexing; I have 15,933 people in my Linkedin network, but where to begin?   Interestingly, I’ve been on the inside track for a number of positions because I knew or had worked with people in the organization, and because I’m fairly well-regarded in my field for the quality work I do, only to have the position go to someone with dubious qualifications, but with certain variables over which I have absolutely no control (you can interpret that anyway you please). Suffice it to say, having a network and stellar references will only get you so far, and in my experience, no farther. Informational interviews? Forget it, hasn’t worked. 

I digress. One of the pieces of advice I’ve read recently is about featuring your accomplishments – not just your activities - on your résumé, CV, in your cover letters, etc., you know, “I saved the company $8 gazillion through exceedingly frugal management of company resources.” Maybe you did, I’m impressed, God bless, hope you got a raise for your efforts and voted employee of the year. Based on that bit of advice I decided to see if I could quantify my life’s work to come up with a meaningful list of accomplishments, and truth be told, it’s pretty depressing, depending of course on how one defines “accomplishment,” the metrics one uses, and one’s line of work. Regarding the latter, accomplishments will certainly vary by what it is you actually do for a living, other than applying for jobs, which seems to be my primary occupation of late (I’m chuckling out loud, but in an ironic way). When I dug deep into my present and past CVs I came up with one, one lousy accomplishment for, oh let’s say 20 years of work (you’ll find it below, but I’m not giving it away, you’ll know it when you see it) based on a purely quantitative metric, the metric that supposedly counts. So, as I was conducting this exercise it got me thinking about what an “accomplishment” actually is, and I came to the conclusion that some of my work just can’t be defined by how much money I saved a company or how many new clients I developed because that’s not what I do; to riff on an old BASF commercial, “I don’t make the program run, I make the program run better.” 

What I argue here is that my activities are my accomplishments because most of the time I can’t tell you what the actual long-term outcome was or the impact of my work beyond providing my expertise and collective experience to the good folks who run a program or organization. Let me give you an example. As you can see below, I’ve conducted a fair number of research or evaluation projects and data analyses as part of my practice (I consider myself a “pracademic” with one foot in academia and the other as a practitioner in the research and evaluation enterprise), either on my own or as part of a team. In all cases, I’ve engaged and collaborated with program or organizational stakeholders in various ways: sometimes they wanted to take part in the project as co-researchers, sometimes they just wanted frequent communications with updates on progress and findings, and sometimes they just wanted an actionable report at the end of the project with clear recommendations and some ideas about their implementation. What have I accomplished in this example that’s not considered an activity? When the report is handed off or an end-of-project meeting is convened to talk about findings and what was learned I have no idea whether they’re going to use the report in some meaningful way, use the findings for decision-making, or even implement the recommendations. My accomplishment is that I (or my team) received the contract (one could list the number of contracts received and for how much the contract was worth as an accomplishment if one kept such statistics, apparently just getting contracts isn’t enough); completed the study, evaluation, or analysis; wrote a report; and convened a meeting; and maybe provided some sort of post-meeting follow-up…end of story. Hopefully, the clients were satisfied, not measurably satisfied, but at least anecdotal-evidence satisfied, which, in some cases I suppose is an accomplishment unto itself. If I worked as a part of a team then whatever accomplishments accrued were not individual, rather, they were collective. How do you measure that against the current “accomplishment” standard? Here’s another example. I taught two doctoral-level graduate courses a few semesters ago and by all accounts got pretty good student evaluations. What’s the accomplishment in this case? Is getting high marks on student evaluations the accomplishment, or is what my students learned - based on the curriculum I developed, the in-class activities I had them engage in, the discussions we had, how I delivered the material, and the authentic project-based assessments I used - the accomplishment? My activities in this case begat at least some student learning, but I can’t claim their learning as my own accomplishment, that would just be silly. If I knew how my students applied what they learned then perhaps that could be considered an accomplishment, but I’ll likely never know. This takes us back to the question, what is an “accomplishment?” As you’ve no doubt surmised, the overarching argument I’m making in this piece is that activities, by any measure, are accomplishments, in my field at least and maybe in yours as well. For those of us whose careers are activity-based because we work with people who derive benefit from what we do for or with them, what can we otherwise claim as “accomplishment?”

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that we who work in such a way don’t tend to collect the data we need to quantify our activities into the kinds of accomplishments hiring managers/decision-makers value most. Should we be penalized for what we do and what we claim are our people-centered accomplishments? The answer is, in my estimation, a resounding, no. When I’m working with people I’m focused on the business at hand and not on what I’m “accomplishing” because that takes the focus off them and puts it on me, which just wouldn’t be right given the values (i.e., those of community psychology) which guide my work. It is only when someone asks what I accomplished teaching those pesky doctoral students or conducting that evaluation, often years later that I try to conjure up a reasonable response. At the end of the day, when I’m applying for a position, I want what I’ve done over the course of my career to be the accomplishments upon which I’m judged, not some arbitrary metric that means nothing in my fields of endeavor. 

So without further ado, and for those who are interested, I give you Sheldon by the numbers. If you’re not interested just skip to the end of the section for my closing argument.          

Research, Evaluation, and Data Analysis Projects

17: Research or evaluation studies completed (1 demographic, 1 mixed methods, 11 qualitative, and 3 quantitative) either as sole practitioner or as part of a team

17: Quantitative data analysis projects completed as sole practitioner

Leadership

3: American Evaluation Association Topical Interest Groups chaired

3 American Evaluation Association Topical Interest Groups co-chaired

1:  Co-founding of an American Evaluation Association Topical Interest Group (Community Psychology)

1: Academic department of nine faculty members chaired

6: Professional leadership positions held at the owner, director, manager, or lead-researcher level

1: Foundation executive director search committee chaired

3: Non-profit board officer positions held

2: Project management team member

10: Head varsity coached teams

Extramural Funding

$7.5 million: Extramural funding obtained from federal; state; and private, corporate, community and family foundation grants and in-kind contributions

50+: Extramural funding proposals prepared and written (success rate ~60%)

Peer Reviews

19: Federal grant competition peer reviews conducted, 200+ individual funding applications evaluated, scored, and paneled

20: Academic journal article peer reviews conducted

5:   Great Minds in STEM scholarship application reviews conducted, ~100 scholarship applications evaluated and scored

10: Years of reviewing and scoring professional organization (4) conference presentation proposals (~110)

Technical Writing, Academic Writing, and Presentations

34: Technical reports written for completed research studies, evaluation studies, or data analyses

1: Co-authored book chapter published

7: Authored or co-authored peer reviewed academic journal articles published

6:   American Evaluation Association AEA365 Blogs published

41: Articles about completed evaluations, research methods, or social science theory written and published on LinkedIn

18: Professional conference or professional group presentations made

2:   Guest lectures at the University of San Diego on survey design and implementation, and theory-driven evaluation respectively 

Teaching and Training

5: Years as a high school classroom teacher of Biology I and II, General Science, and French III (~300 students taught across all classes and years)

2: Doctoral-level graduate evaluation (1 theory, 1 application) courses taught to 12 students each at the University of San Diego; student evaluations averaged 6.72/7 (SD = .46) and 6.85/7 (SD = .36) respectively.  

2: Trainings proved to Iranian NGOs, one each on strategic planning and operational planning

Advising, Mentoring, and Technical Assistance

105: Responses to individual questions about community development issues in the role of Community Tool Box Advisor 

1: Doctoral dissertation committee served on as a member

1: Author mentored for the African Evaluation Journal’s Special Health Evaluation Edition

6: YMCA executives mentored in social science research methods and white paper development

72: Programs to which direct planning, implementation, and evaluation capacity building technical assistance was provided

Current Certifications

5: Human research subject protection certifications from NIH (1) and CITI (4)

Internships

3: The Center for Law and Education (Cambridge, MA), The Clinical – Developmental Institute (Belmont, MA), and McCord Hospital (Durban, SA)

Consulting Work

6:   Organizations (e.g., non-profits, municipalities, schools, and local education agencies) to which professional consulting services were provided on a total of 17 projects (e.g., funding proposal research and preparation; marketing; developing a non-profit board of directors; and legislative/public affairs)

Education

1: Ph.D.

2: Master’s degrees

1: Bachelor’s degree

Other

3: Hudson Valley Athletic League (HVAL) varsity cross-country championships won as head coac

1: Klingenstein Fellowship, Teachers College, Columbia University

1: Leadership Hilton Head Class of 199

1: Who’s Who in America

1: Who's Who in the South and Southwest

1: Technical College of the Lowcountry Community Service Award

43: United States Masters Swimming Top Ten Times:     

o    2 National Top Ten Relay Times 

o      34 Dixie Zone Top Ten Individual Times

o      7 Dixie Zone Top Ten Relay Times                   

I hope you found this piece both entertaining and helpful. However, please don’t take it as a “woe is me, no one will hire me, wah, wah, wah” piece, rather see it for what it is: an indictment against the metrics used in making hiring decisions and an argument for considering professional activities as accomplishments of value - that quality is a quantity all its own. In the final analysis, these are my accomplishments, but the question remains: did I really “accomplish” anything of value based on the common metrics in use today? For better, for worse, this compendium is the sum total of my professional life’s work thus far, plus a few add-ons to make me seem a bit more, er, accomplished. You be the judge, but I think what I’ve done clearly merits consideration as accomplishments of value especially when it comes to getting hired for positions for which I am well suited and eminently qualified. Further, what I’ve done certainly shows, I think, a vast skill set, and what I am capable of doing for any organization that needs what I have to offer; hopefully you feel the same way about your accomplishments as well. If you haven’t done so already, I highly suggest going through the same exercise for yourself by quantifying your life’s work, I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised when you see the actual numbers. By the way, if you found what you think to be my quantifiable accomplishment, do InMail me soon as. 

Cheers, Jeff