[pclmulqdq]

100% this. I interview a lot of people for "performance engineering" roles, and ~50-80% of performance engineering is measurement. If you have a number on your resume, how you measured that number is often a lot more interesting to me than how you achieved that result. A lot of people have bad answers.

[collingreen]

I also always ask how it was measured and if they published that anywhere. It's also informative to ask how it compares to other similar projects at similar companies and how (when applicable) it compares to state of the art in academia.

Company size matters of course but it is nice to see how a decision got made and how the results compared to expectations. Was this done thoughtfully and rigorously? If it's just made up that comes through really really quickly as well.

My advice for all getting hired is to try to skip the recruiting pipeline. Yes it's hard and there is no silver bullet but the standard pipeline is a brutal gauntlet to go through and I'd rather spend the time building rapport with a hiring manager or future peer instead.

[pclmulqdq]

The informal job market is very good to use. I got one internship through the cold-call process, but haven't been successful sending out resumes otherwise. Every job since then was a referral - all still involved interviews, but a referral is a nice way to bypass the resume shredder.

Ironically, every company I have worked for has said they get much better candidates/employees through referrals, too. Yet another sign that the "resume and a firm handshake" idea is broken.