Easy Formulas to Quantify Resume Accomplishments

I have written about it repeatedly: including accomplishments in your resume is one of the most important improvements you can make when updating your resume.

But, resume accomplishments alone are not enough. To be really effective, your resume accomplishments should go one step further and emphasize the results of your accomplishments. Consider the difference:

• Grew customer accounts and increased sales.

vs

• Won 35 new accounts with Fortune 500 customers, expanding the customer base 43% and increasing sales $5.4 million.

Quantifying accomplishments and using numbers to illustrate the results and value you deliver to your employers doesn’t just add punch to your resume, it helps to make it more credible and meaningful as well. Proven results of past performance are the best indicator a prospective employer has of your potential to produce similar results for their company.

But many people find it very difficult to figure out ways that they can use numbers to quantify their resume accomplishments. If this is true of you, this blog post will prove invaluable.

There are four options when you are thinking about quantifying your resume accomplishments.

1) Whole Number Metrics (sums or totals)

For example, revenue expressed as a dollar figure, profit expressed as a dollar figure, total costs as a dollar figure, the number of transactions, the number of transactions of goal completions, the number of transactions of customers, etc.

2) Percentages

For example, % of increase, % of decrease, % of satisfied customers, % of conversions, % of sales growth, etc.

3) Averages

Such as average customer satisfaction rating, average sales per customer, average days to a sales win, etc.

4) Ratios

Ratios are a way for comparing numbers and are often used to demonstrate productivity, for example total sales / total hours spent, sales opportunities / closed sales, or number of leads generated / ad spend.

The way in which you present your resume accomplishments can have an impact on your job search too. You should also consider a couple of factors when you are deciding how to present your accomplishments.

• Are there any confidentiality concerns about the numbers you plan to include? For example, it might not be appropriate to include the actual dollar figures associated with the sales or profits of a private company employer. On the other hand, these figures expressed as a percentage increase may be perfectly fine.
• What is the best way to tell the story of your accomplishment? For example, if you have only worked for small-cap companies in the past, but are now targeting positions in large-cap, multinational corporations, which of the following wordings tell your story in a way that makes it relevant to your target reader? “Increased year-over-year sales $350,000.” or “Increased year-over-year sales 65%.”

One of my favorite questions to ask my clients during our consultation prior to writing their resume is “So what?”

The conversation will often be similar to this:

Resume consultant: In what ways did your work benefit your employer?

Client: Well, one of the things I did was redesign and reorganize the marketing materials the sales team was using.

Resume consultant: That’s great. But so what? Why did that matter?

Client: It helped a lot. Things were so disorganized before that we could never find what we needed. Also, they old materials were so outdated.

Resume consultant: Okay, so what? What was happening as a result of this disorganization and outdated materials?

Client: Well, we were losing sales.

Resume consultant: Oh no! Tell me more. So what?

Client: It was bad. Sales had declined 25% when compared to the the year before.

Resume consultant: So you updated the marketing materials and reorganized them to make them easier to find. So what was the result?

Client: Well, sales finally stopped falling and actually increased again, a total of 45%.

Resume accomplishment bullet:

• Halted 25% sales decline and restarted growth, increasing year-over-year sales 45% as result of updating then reorganizing outdated sales collateral to improve sales team efficiency and effectiveness.

You can use this same line of questioning as you think about your own accomplishments. Continue asking yourself “so what” until you get to the bottom-line impact.

You can use these two formulas for the metrics below that call for a percentage of increase or decrease.

• Formula for calculating an increase: (New Number – Original Number) / (Original Number) X 100
• Formula for calculating a decrease: (Original Number – New Number) / (Original Number) X 100

• Sales growth over time (look for increases)
• Month-over-Month (MoM), Quarter-over-Quarter (QoQ) or Year-over-Year (YoY) revenue comparisons (expressed as whole dollars or percentages) (expressed as whole dollars or percentages)
• Sales compared to other regions or territories
• Performance to Quota (expressed as whole dollars or percentages; can also use averages to show quota overachievement over a period of time)
• Number of deals closed (try presenting comparisons over time)
• Sales Win Rates (% of total sales opportunities converted to actual sales)
  Formula: (# of Sales Opportunities Won / # of Opportunities Contacted) X 100
• Average Sales Cycle (look for reductions)
  Formula: Total # of days spent on closed deals / # of deals won
• Lead Response Time (faster lead response time is better)
• Total Pipeline Value (look for increases)

• Cost of goods sold (COGS) (look for decreases)
• Gross Profits = Net Sales – COGS (look for increases)
• Gross Profit Margin: (Gross Profit / Net Sales) X 100 (look for increases)
• Return on Investment (ROI)
  Formula: (Revenue Gained from Investment – Cost of Investment) / (Cost of Investment) X 100
• Net Profits = Total Revenue – Total Expenses (look for increases)
• Net Profit Margin = (Net Profit / Sales) X 100 (look for increases – note, if net profits have increased it may be a result of reduced expenses or increased selling prices)
• EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, & Amortization) = Revenue – Expenses Excluding Interest, Tax, Depreciation & Amortization (look for increases)

• Net Cash Flow: Total Cash Inflows – Total Cash Outflows (higher numbers are better)
• Total Cash Flow = Cash from Operating Activities + Cash from Financial Activities + Cash from Investing Activities (look for increases)
• Operating Cash Flow = (Net Income + Depreciation and Other Non-Cash Expenses) – Increase in Working Capital (look for increases)
• Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) (lower numbers are better)
  Formula: (Total Accounts Receivables / # of Total Credit Sales) X Days in Period
• Debt-to-Equity Ratio = Total Liabilities / Shareholders’ Equity
  – Higher ratios represent high levels of financing by borrowing and are riskier; lower ratios indicate a lower amount of financing by lenders (but, not all debt is bad; sometimes debt can help expand a business)
  – Compare debt-to-equity ratio against industry averages
• Inventory Turnover = Cost of Goods Sold / Average Inventory
  – High inventory turnover means goods are selling quickly (higher efficiency)
  – Low turnover means less demand for products and weaker sales
• Accounts Receivables Turnover =
  Formula: Step 1. (Beginning Value + Ending Value) / 2 = Average AR
  Step 2. (Net Credit Sales / Average AR)
  Note: The AR Turnover Ratio indicates the efficiency with which a company collects on receivables. A high ratio generally indicates more efficiency in collecting on debts.
• Return on Equity (ROE) = Net Income / Shareholder Equity (net income is bottom-line profit before common stock dividends are paid and shareholder equity is assets minus liabilities on a balance sheet)
  – Indicates how efficient a company is at managing money shareholders have contributed; higher #s are better
  – Try making comparisons to competitors and the overall market; also comparisons over time
• Return on Assets (ROA) = Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) / company’s total assets
  – higher ROA indicates efficiency at managing the balance sheet to generate profits
• Order lead time = Time Shipped/Delivered – Time Order Placed (look for decreases)

• Total # of customers
• Average customer revenue = Total Revenue / Total Customers (look for increases)
• Customer retention rate (CRR) (higher numbers are better)
  Formula: (Current # of Customers at end of time period – # of Customers gained in that time period) / (# of Customers at Beginning Period) X 100
• Customer Churn Rate (inverse of CRR and lower is better)
  Formula: Number of Customers Lost in a Given Period / Number of Customers at the Start of the Period
• Repeat Customer Rate = Total # of return customers / Total # of customers
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) = (Average Order Value x Repeat Purchase Rate) – Customer Acquisition Cost
  – higher CLV might indicate higher per customer sales, improved loyalty, or improved satisfaction
• Net Promoter Score = % of customer likely to recommend your company to others (must get this from a survey)
• Customer support tickets (# of new tickets, # of resolved tickets, average resolution time – look for improvements)
• Customer satisfaction score
• Customer complaints (looking for decreases)

• Conversion rate = # of leads / # of purchasers
• Incremental Sales = Total Sales – Expected Sales w/out Marketing Campaign (performance of marketing campaign)
• Cost of Customer Acquisition = Total $ spent / Total # of customers acquired (look for decreases)
• Social Media Followers
• Volume of Web Traffic (and volume of web traffic per source)
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
• Total # of inbound leads and Inbound leads by channel
• Total # of new qualified opportunities
• Opportunity to order %
• Average order value
• Average upsell value or average upsell %
• Cost per lead
• Social program ROI

• Employee Turnover Rate = # of workers who left / total # of employees
  – compare against industry benchmarks and look for decreases
• Cost Per Hire = Recruiting expenses (internal & external) / Successful hires
• Knowledge achieved with training (requires pre- and post-tests)
• Internal promotions vs external hires
• Average Time to Fill = Total Number of Days of Open Jobs / Total Number of Jobs Open
• Hires to Goal = Total New Hires / Hiring Goal
• Overtime per employee = Total hours overtime / number of employees
• Employee Absence Rate

• On-time completion %
• Budget variance (planned vs actual)
• Project schedule variance

• Total # of products produced per (time frame)
• Amount of time to complete a task
• Average Employee Productivity = Total Revenue / Total # of Employees
• Utilization Rate = (Total weekly billable hours logged / Total weekly hours logged) x 100
• Amount of output (quantity, $ value, or volume) / # of hours per time period
• Throughput = overall rate of production (of a line, a plant, a machine, etc.)
• Machine downtime rates
• Cycle time = average time to produce a product
• First Pass Yield = percentage of products manufactured to specs without being scrapped or requiring rework