How to Amplify Your Resume with Metrics

There are people who add metrics to their resumes and those who don’t. Don’t be the latter.

Metrics give recruiters a concrete idea of what you’ve accomplished and what you might achieve at their organization. You’ll want to add some to your resume before applying to your next job.

Understand What Recruiters Want

Recruiters will want to know how you can add value to their company—for example, how you might help it grow, save money, attract customers, or increase sales. Pinning down what they’re looking for will help you design a winning resume.

Revisiting the job listing will help you think from the recruiter’s perspective and determine which metrics would help elevate your resume. If the job requires a candidate with a customer-oriented mindset, for example, you’ll find it’s worth emphasizing metrics quantifying your interactions with customers. That might include:

• How much you increased customer satisfaction: “Provided exceptional customer service, contributing to a 15% increase in customer satisfaction.”
• How many customers you served on average: “Served ~10 clients each day, which is 20 percent above the company’s average.”

Types of Metrics to Include

You can (and should) use a combination of numbers (whole numbers, dollar values, percentages, and times) to demonstrate the impact you’ve had on an organization, including its customers and employees. Metrics can help illustrate 1) the improvements you’ve made and 2) the size of your impact.

Improvements

Some questions to consider:

• How much money did you save the company?
• How much time did you save the company?
• How much did customer satisfaction increase?

Size of Impact

Some questions to consider:

• How many customers did you serve each day?
• How long was your project?
• How many people did you manage?
• How much money did you raise?

A Final Thought

By quantifying your experiences, recruiters will have more certainty about how you can contribute to their company; so, adding metrics to your resume is worth your extra time and energy.

For future reference, speak to your employer(s) about your performance, and make sure to take note of all your accomplishments. In that way, you’ll be well-prepared to update your resume moving forward.