How to include numbers on your resume, even if you think you don’t have any

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: Hey there. I’m Sarah Doody, host of the Career Strategy Podcast. Many professionals are seeking more impact, flexibility,

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Sarah Doody [00:00:30]: and stop dreading Mondays. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get Mondays. Ready to level up your career? Let’s get after it. Alright. Today, we have a very juicy episode all about how to include numbers on your resume even if you think you don’t have any numbers to include. What are you going to do? So, many people think that including metrics on their resume means that they have to have these incredible resume bullet points that say something like I help the company save or make a $1,000,000. That is just not the reality for a lot of people, right? Not every role has outcomes like these. And if you happen to have left your job maybe before a project wrapped up, you may not have access to these numbers.

Sarah Doody [00:01:23]: So, what are you supposed to do? Because every corner of the internet seems to be telling you that you have to include numbers and metrics, etc. Alright. So, here’s how to tackle this. It’s a very simple mindset shift, and the shift is I want you to change your focus from outcomes to process. Because when you have bullet points that say I helped the company make $1,000,000 that is an outcome. And if you have that, amazing. But for a lot of people, you don’t. So by shifting your focus of numbers and metrics to process, you’re able to include numbers and metrics which are going to catch people’s attention and show people the scope and scale of things you have worked on.

Sarah Doody [00:02:12]: So let’s look at a few examples. Let’s imagine you are working as a user researcher. You may have bullet points that talk about how many participants were in a research study you did, Or maybe you could talk about how many data points were in a dataset that you analyzed? Maybe you are talking about the frequency of your research for example, you were responsible for conducting a quarterly survey of your 500 or 5000 customers. So those are some examples where you can talk about process metrics, not just outcome metrics. Alright. Let’s think about a designer. So how would a designer talk about the scope of what they’ve worked on? Many designers just say, for example, I created a design system. Well, great! But let’s tell people more about that design system.

Sarah Doody [00:03:19]: You might be able to say how many components were a part of that design system, for example. Because a design system that has 200 components is a lot different than one that has 5. Right? You could talk about how many user flows you designed or even how many screens were involved in the part of the product that you were working on. If you’re in management, you could talk about how many people you managed on your design team. So those are some examples of how you can include numbers and metrics on your resume by focusing on process and not just big outcomes of saving the company a $1,000,000 because let’s face it, that’s not the reality for many many people out there. And the really important thing here is that if you do not include these numbers and metrics, people won’t know. And by including the numbers and metrics, those could be the very things that help you stand out. Because side by side, if I’m looking at a resume that has numbers and one that doesn’t, the one that has numbers is going to be more interesting.

Sarah Doody [00:04:34]: It’s going to have more context, may catch my attention more, and I’m going to have a clearer understanding of the exact experience that that person has for that person that included numbers and metrics versus the person who didn’t. I don’t know, for example, if it’s a researcher, like the scale of their experience with research. But the researcher who was diligent about including numbers to let me know how big their studies were or the number of data points or the frequency of their research, that’s telling me a lot more about that person. Alright, and I wanna let you know that even if you don’t have numbers, it is okay. But I really think if you shift your mindset from outcomes to process, you should be able to have some numbers in your resume. So that’s all for today. Hope you are able to go make some really tangible quick changes to your resume right now and see how by including numbers, even if you thought you couldn’t in the past, your resume is going to be more powerful than it was before you listened to this episode. All right, we’ll see you in another episode.

Sarah Doody [00:05:48]: Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to the Career Strategy Podcast. Make sure to follow me, Sarah Doody, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. If anything in today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. Tag me on social media or send me a DM. And lastly, if you found this episode helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with a friend or give us a quick rating on Spotify or review on Apple Podcasts. Catch you later.