Quantifying Your Achievements Doesn't Have to be Difficult

Resume experts often recommend that you quantify your achievements rather than making vague statements about your skills. However, many people find it difficult to insert numbers into their resumes without the end result sounding unnatural. Use these tips to help quantify the achievements in your resume.

First, remember that money talks. Hiring managers want to know how much money you can make or save the organization. In a current or previous role, have you implemented any changes in the organization that have led to increased profits or reduced costs? If so, quantify your achievement by including the figures in your resume, explaining in detail what you did to achieve the result.

Hiring managers also look for a context to frame your achievements. Rather than simply saying that you worked on a sales team, specify the sales volume that the team turned over each month. This helps to put your personal sales figures in context and can also make your own achievements more impressive. For example, if you won a salesperson of the month award while working on a team of 200 people, that is much more impressive than getting the same award while on a team of 20. Use numbers to contextualize your achievements and make them sound more impressive to a potential employer.

If you try to quantify your achievements and can't find exact numbers that apply to your work, that doesn't necessarily mean you've achieved nothing. It may be that you're a team player rather than someone who works on their own goals. Team players are often highly sought-after by employers. Think about the achievements you've contributed to by working as part of a team, and quantify those achievements with numbers, explaining how your contribution helped to bring them about.

If you can't quantify your achievements with exact figures, use ballpark figures instead. For example, the phrase "a turnover of millions of dollars" often makes just as significant an impact on the reader as an exact figure in that range. In cases where you don't know exactly how much money your idea saved for your company, you may need to quantify your achievements in terms of time rather than cash. For example, if you write that an improvement you made to a production process led to a 20 percent decrease in production time, employers understand that this translates into a significant cost saving.

Finally, remember that everything you write on your resume must be honest. This principle remains particularly important when you quantify your achievements, as it might be possible for employers to check up on sales figures you quote. If they discover you lying, you're unlikely to get the job.

Take a look over your resume and highlight any places where you can quantify your achievements. Gather the figures you need and work them into your resume wherever you can to make it more impressive to potential employers.

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