Cutting Through posted this reply to my Budget Macho post and I agree completely. In part they said:
But absolute measures of budget are meaningless unless you’ve got the context in which to put the figures - going back to the example I cited, the budget amounted to 10% of their annual turnover, and their entire reserves. Screwing that up by going 10% over-budget would have resulted in holing them below the waterline. If I’d screwed up the biggest project I’ve managed to date - well, missing the numbers by 10% would have resulted in some penalty clauses being invoked and some harsh words exchanged, but ultimately the organisation would have survived.
Working on a $1,000,000 project at Boeing or Lockheed or Merck or Haliburton is no big deal. $1 million is a fraction of a cost overrun for one of their projects. Companies like this have a special word for the project managers they get to handle projects this size: Junior! But work on a $1 million project at a company that has only ever done $250,000 projects before and suddenly you are a rock star and one false move and the company ceases to exist!
They also make a good point about what recruiters should be asking:
What recruiters should be asking is “which project did you learn the most from, and what did you learn?” But that’s not a question you’ll be asked often until you’re talking to a recruiting manager rather than an intermediary.
I have never been asked that by any recruiter. I’ve been asked it twice but both times it was a project manager asking! :-)
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