How often do you achieve something at work?

Question

Summary

Good day everyone.
In interviews, both in real life and in various interview articles, do you ever come across a moment where you start being asked a series of questions about what you have achieved in your previous jobs? How much he optimized, how much he reduced the costs of X, what other benefits he brought, etc. Answers in the style of "I just worked steadily, conscientiously fulfilling the entire range of duties announced to me" are perceived as the childish babble of a schoolboy who does not cause any special emotions in the person who is interviewing you. If you start answering the question directly and listing your achievements, the interlocutor used to scratch his smart head thoughtfully and ask: "Hmm .. What else did you achieve? .. Yes? ... And what else did you achieve? ... And that's all ?..Oh, this is not an achievement, you should work normally anyway and there is nothing remarkable in this... And that's it,
You might think that all over the world, workers continually give out one achievement after another. Regarding this topic, I want to ask you the following things:
1. How do you usually answer such questions in an interview and in a resume?
2. And what to write if you just worked normally and the management liked the way you worked? How do you answer this if you, too, just performed your duties well and you have no other answer to this question?
3. Is it necessary to write in the resume what you have achieved?
4. Don't you think that the one who talks like that is more catching up with pathos and himself cannot boast of anything like that in his work, and if you check him, then nothing will be found except for "working normally"? Or I'm wrong?

Answer 1

1. How do you usually answer such questions in an interview and on a resume?

So I answer, at this work there were such tasks and such achievements, and at this work there were supporting tasks where it is difficult to note achievements, they were all done on time, because business needed it
So to speak, all the tasks were completed. Bug fixes, for example, if a person does all the time, what achievements does he have? Complex bugfix and quick bugfix ))
Not required but preferred
Not always, the question can generally be asked not to find out about achievements, but to identify:
1) The level of reflection
2) Feedback about the previous boss, employer
3) Evaluation of what an achievement is for an employee in general. One can say: I messed up a million lines of code, and another will say: I made a system that withstood 30 thousand rps, and the third: I made a system that never crashed later.

Answer 2

Usually there are no achievements for the entry-level enikey players. And then.
You can always come up with a technical solution that optimizes tasks, improves quality, or dramatically reduces the cost of something.
In general, I can’t imagine how you can work for at least a year and not come up with or implement any improvements that you could talk about. Not everything is worth mentioning in a resume, but you can always tell.
Examples of specific improvements - you can give a lot.
Standardization of something, organization of something, implementation of software, hardware, solutions.
Again, there are courses, audits, certifications.
Another issue is that not everyone knows how to correctly talk about achievements so that it is understandable to a non-technical manager.