Quantify or Be Ignored: The Most Important CV Tip Ever!

Your CV is the window of your shop. In other words, your shop might sell the most amazing articles at the most amazing prices, if the window looks untidy, disorganised or does not include products that people are after… you might not have any customer entering at all. As we know, employers and recruiters, when going through CVs are looking for specific information. Fail to present/expose what they’re after and your CV could be ignored… (That’s also why windows often have a variety of products.)

Before we talk about the topic of the day, make you answer a resounding “YES!” to the following questions:

• Does your CV have the smart keywords that allowed your CV to be found? (If not, click here)
• Did you format your CV in a way that is easy to read and therefore create a good feeling about it? No spelling / grammatical mistakes?

If you answered “YES” than Excellent work! Now, let’s look at the topic of today’s article:

The main thing that Employers are after? Numbers.

In fact, managers in most companies live and die by the numbers they report every month. They deal with budgets, production cost, salaries, inventory cost, number of employees, deadline, leaves, years of experience… numbers are everywhere.

Therefore, try to always, always quantify everything on your CV.

For example, if you put in place a system that saved time for your company, say how much time it saved.

If you’re managing a team, say how big is this team? Have you grown it? If yes by what %?

In the same token, always try to monetize everything.
Any job is an investment for the company.

It means that your job is contributing to either save or make money for the company, directly or indirectly. You must try to establish a connection between your achievements on the job and the money it represents for the company.

So if you are looking after maintenance in a factory, discuss what preventive measures you took to avoid any interruption in the production chain.
Ask yourself:
– Has this improved since you took the role?
– If yes, what does 1 hour of interruption in the production chain cost the company (think about salaries, delivery delays, angry customers..etc..)
– And finally then, how much has your preventive maintenance allowed the company to save?#

In the same way if you’re in charge of bringing new customers to the company, say how many you brought within a time period, how much have they spent with your company…

In short, how does your work impact the company financially? You might struggle to think like this about the roles you had in your company but trust me, the more you exercise this muscle, the more your CV will look apart!

Good Luck!
Hamza Zaouali