Okay, so today I’m gonna walk you through how I messed around with the Washington Cleveland score. It’s not rocket science, but it took me a bit to get my head around it, so maybe this will help someone else.
First off, I stumbled upon this Washington Cleveland score thing while trying to figure out a better way to, like, rank candidates for a volunteer project. We had a ton of people applying, and just eyeballing the applications wasn’t cutting it. I needed something a bit more… systematic. I mean, I started by googling “how to rank volunteers,” and that’s when I ran into this Washington Cleveland thing.
So, step one was understanding what the heck it actually is. Basically, it’s a points-based system. You define a bunch of criteria that are important for the role, and then you give points for each criterion. The candidate with the most points, wins. Sounds simple, right? Well, the devil’s in the details.
I started by listing out everything that mattered for this volunteer gig. Things like: past experience with similar projects, communication skills, availability, stuff like that. I literally grabbed a pen and paper and just brainstormed. I tried to keep it to around 5-7 key things, because if you have too many criteria, it gets messy real quick.
Next, I had to decide how many points to give each criterion. This is where it got tricky. I decided to weight some things more than others. Like, past experience was a big one, so I gave it a higher point value. Availability was important, but not as important, so it got fewer points. This was mostly gut feeling, to be honest, but I tried to justify it with some logic. I scribbled down a simple table: experience(50 points), communication(30 points), availability(20 points).
After that, I actually went through all the applications and started assigning points. This was the most tedious part. I created a spreadsheet to make it easier. I had a column for each criterion, and then I just went through each application and filled in the points. For experience, I looked at how long they’d been doing similar stuff, and how relevant it was. For communication, I looked at their cover letter and tried to get a sense of how well they could write and express themselves. It was subjective, for sure, but I tried to be consistent.
Then, I summed up the points for each candidate. The spreadsheet did most of the work for me, thankfully. And voila! I had a ranked list of candidates. It was way more objective than just picking people I liked from their photos.
But here’s the thing: The first time I did it, the results were… weird. The person who came out on top wasn’t who I expected at all. I went back and looked at my criteria and point values, and realized I had weighted things wrong. I tweaked the point values and ran it again. This time, the results made more sense. I had to go back and forth a couple of times to make sure the weighting felt right.
In the end, it worked pretty well! The Washington Cleveland score gave me a solid starting point for making decisions. It’s not perfect, but it’s way better than just winging it. Plus, it gave me a good way to explain my choices to the rest of the team.
Lessons learned? Don’t be afraid to tweak your criteria and point values. The first time you do it, you’re probably gonna mess it up. And remember, it’s just a tool. It’s not a replacement for your own judgment. But it can definitely help you make better decisions.
