Engineering Experience

Article:
How to write your resume with quantifiable results.
http://newgradlife.blogspot.com/2009/10/resume-writing-sample-resumes-resume.html

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.

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.

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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.”