Find the E · 01
A CV compresses years of work into titles, dates, and a few selected achievements.
What useful ability disappeared in the compression?
This is the first round of Find the E, inspired by my marginalium B = A + E: our representations of reality always contain an error. An incompleteness / blind spot / identity conflation / social inertia. A is the reality; B is the representation we use; E is the error, omission, or distortion between them.
Here, the CV stands in for a much more complicated person.
Let’s recover a missing line.
What would you add?
Name one useful ability your CV does not show well. A sentence is enough. If you like, add a small example of when it mattered.
E.g.:
- “I can help someone understand a difficult idea without making them feel stupid.”
Perhaps yours comes from an unusual combination of interests, an experience outside paid work, or something you learned while a neat professional biography would say you were doing nothing.
Add your missing line in the comments, or reply to the social post that brought you here. You can also challenge the premise: what does your CV capture particularly well?
A closer look at the E
B = A + E is a compact way of examining approximation, developed in Fuzzy on the Dark Side (Approximate Thinking). In this case:
- A: your capabilities and experience, including how you notice, judge, learn, and work with others.
- B: the account presented by your CV, organised into the categories a reader expects.
- E: the differences introduced by that representation, including what disappears and what the reader assumes.
A job title can hide how differently two people performed the same role. An impressive institutional name can invite a judgement that the actual work would not support. A career gap might conceal a period of difficult learning.
The CV helps a reader navigate complexity. The trouble begins when we forget how much interpretation sits between the document and the person.
Finding E therefore involves more than adding flattering details. It means asking which differences matter for the judgement being made, and what assumptions hide behind approximations.
Once you have named your missing line, try a second question:
What small piece of evidence would make that ability visible?
For the wider idea read B = A + E.
The discussion continues here
I’ll update this page with selected replies from the comments and social media, alongside a reflection on what they reveal. Contrasting answers are welcome: they may show where the question itself needs improving.
