Companies are looking for potential employees who can help them generate revenue, reduce cost, and/or increase efficiencies. Thus resumes should include quantifiable results of accomplishments. However, some job seekers have a hard time quantifying their accomplishments. Below is a 5 step approach job seekers can follow to enhance their resumes.

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1. Determine which Accomplishments to Highlight: Review the reasons why you were hired, the problems you solved, and/or tasks you completed in your previous positions.

2. Identify Appropriate Metrics: Review how your performance was measured to determine the appropriate metrics that can highlight your results. Sample metrics are below for various professions:

• Operations – inventory turns, out-of-stock rate, service levels, product rejects, warranty costs, customer satisfaction, and raw material costs
• Finance/Accounting – COGS, gross margin, SG&A and operating expenses, operating margin, DSO, cash flow
• HR – absenteeism and turnover
• Project Management – time, cost, and quality
• Web Design – pages/visit, average time on site, clickthrough rate, and cost per thousand impressions
• Marketing – brand penetration, cannibalization, customer retention, and market share
• Sales – pipeline, closing ratios, new business, and quotas
• Customer Service – customer complaints, consumer satisfaction index, average call time, and dropped calls
• Collections – overdue accounts and collection costs

3. Quantify Your Results: Determine the percentages and/or amounts (which include dollar figures) for the metrics you selected. For example, the initiative increased revenue from $100M to $150M or by 50% ($150/$100M – 1).

4. Combine Your Accomplishments with Quantifiable Results: Below are examples for various professions:

• Operations – Streamlined processes resulting in a 25% increase in inventory turns, a 15% decline in product rejects, and a $30M decrease in warranty costs.
• Finance/Accounting – Successfully implemented restructuring initiatives resulting in a 10% decrease in COGS from $683M to $613M, a 10% increase in operating margin, and a 60 to 40 days reduction in DSO.
• HR – Implemented new policies resulting in a 10% decrease in both employee absenteeism and turnover.
• Project Management – Completed all of the project tasks 30 days ahead of schedule saving the company $5M or 25% in actual expenditures.
• Web Design – Successfully revamped company website resulting in a 35% increase in pages/visit, 10% increase in average time on site, a 1% to 3% clickthrough rate increase, and a $30 to $20 reduction in cost per thousand.
• Marketing – Developed growth strategy for a brand with the goal of increasing global revenue by 72% or from $29M to $50M within two years.
• Sales – Implemented a referral system, resulting in $0.48M additional revenue or a 33% increase in new business within local retail division.
• Customer Service – Resolved 92% of customer complaints on the first call resulting in a 11% increase in Consumer Satisfaction Index (CSI) scores.
• Collections – Developed new initiative resulting in a 68% decline in overdue accounts and a $48M decrease in collection costs.

5. Provide Numbers for Amounts: Provide numbers for budget, number of people supervised, revenue of company or department, and so on. For example replace this statement, “Serve as a general manager for the beverage category while working with companies such as Kraft,” with this one, “Serve as a general manager who presides over a staff of 50 direct reports and a $500M beverage category while working with vendors such as a $37B food company.”

If you missed it, I strongly recommend you listen to “How to Prepare For and Ace Any Job Interview.” You can listen to the archived version by clicking the player below. Matthew Carpenter, the expert guest, discussed or provided:

• 1. A quick overview of the interview process, how job seekers should prepare, and common mistakes that should be avoided
• 2. Tactics job seekers can employ to ace traditional and behavioral interviews
• 3. Mediocre and good interview answers to the common traditional and behavioral interview questions
• 4. How job seekers can successfully end and follow up after interviews to increase job offers

If you like this episode, I encourage you to visit www.blogtalkradio.com/thecareercatalyst. Next download the previous nine episodes (if you have not done so), register for a free BlogTalkRadio account, mark this show as a favorite, subscribe to our upcoming shows, and become a regular listener.

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Also tune in to Episode I of the CEO Speaker Series and Episode XI: “Job Search Success Stories”. For the CEO Speaker Series, Mr. David H. Hoffmann, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DHR International – one of the largest retained executive search firms in the world; will provide career search advice for job seekers, including current and future C-level executives. This is a show you do not want to miss since you will be able to acquire job search advice from one of the most senior hiring managers in the world.

For Episode XI: Job Search Success Stories, expert guest Theresa Maher, Director of Public and Job Seeker Relations at Jobing.com; will discuss how job seekers are using Jobing.com to land their dream jobs and how you can do the same. This is also a show you do not want to miss.

If you cannot participate live in next week’s shows, feel free to send your questions to kac@kenrickchatman.com by Tuesday.

Remember the wisdom of a crowd is richer than the wisdom of a few. So actively participate in the free online community at jobradiousa.com and encourage fellow job seekers to do the same.

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