Buzz
Merely listing job duties on your resume won't help much with hiring managers, just like stating proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite. Employers nowadays want to see concrete, quantifiable outcomes.
“My biggest resume pet peeve is the absence of measurable results,” says executive resume writer and career strategist Adrienne Tom, speaking to Business Insider. “Without metrics, a resume lacks proof of actual skill.”
As I wrote earlier, including success metrics rather than just responsibilities allows employers to see the actual results of your work. For example, instead of simply stating 'wrote press releases,' saying 'wrote 10 press releases per week' is far more compelling,” Julia Gaynor writes for Monster.com.
How can you decide what to highlight? According to Gaynor, the simplest way is to assess how your contributions directly influenced the company’s finances, time efficiency, and personnel. Here are some suggested figures from LiveCareer:
Volume of sales, quantity of items/units sold
Successful contracts/bids acquired
Growth in profitability
Improvement in shareholder value
Number of customers served
Number of direct reports, individuals managed
Number of individuals you’ve hired
Size of the teams you've led
Frequency of being chosen as team or project leader
Your performance ranking; for example, being the top performer or in the top 10 percent
Number of awards received
Number of published works
Number of successful grant proposals
If you're struggling to identify specific figures, review your calendar, notes, accomplishment box, or any other place where you track your successes for detailed examples.
Additional Tips
Once you've crafted your bullet points, make sure you're providing context. Saying you 'Made sales of $1 million' is great, but what did sales look like before your arrival? Including that detail will give your resume more impact.
Ranges of numbers are often acceptable when exact figures aren't available, as long as you can back them up during an interview. For instance, as The Muse explains, 'Responsible for supervising undergraduate researchers' could be transformed into 'Supervised 7-12 undergraduate research students annually, all of whom have gone on to pursue graduate studies in astrophysics, physics, or mathematics.'
Be sure to incorporate specific clients and relevant keywords. For example, instead of saying 'Led marketing campaigns for name-brand clients,' say 'Led marketing campaign for Nike and other top-tier clients.'
If you're updating your resume as part of your spring financial tuneup, here are additional tips to consider.
