“Without data, you're just another person with an opinion.” ― W. Edwards Deming.
Professor Deming’s words are becoming truer and truer in today’s data-driven business world. Sadly, not everyone applies his statement to their resume and I am 100% sure that it’s hurting their chances of finding a new job.
Resumes that do not quantify the described experience are all too common and I see them every day, from every level of job seeker: from entry-level to C-Suite.
Here are some lines from a fictitious resume:
- Built a new sales team to focus on selling a cutting edge product into enterprise accounts
- Partnered with Marketing team to refine strategy
- Added new channel partners to increase sales pipeline
- Increased ASP
- Decreased sales cycle
This person has done some great things, but the resume really falls in highlighting the accomplishments. Here are the same points with some numbers for more context:
- Built a new sales team of 8 account executives to focus on selling a cutting edge product into enterprise accounts
- Partnered with Marketing team to refine strategy
- Doubled the number of channel partners to increase sales pipeline
- Increased ASP by 35%
- Decreased sales cycle by 15%
A small change, but a big difference. Quantified achievements really paint a much better picture of a candidate’s abilities. This person has built a good size team from scratch and increased the ASP (Average Sales Price); those two accomplishments are magnified by numbers provided. Most of the resumes I read look like the paragraph above. However those numbers provide a MINIMUM amount of context. Here is a final take on the resume adding more data:
- Built a new sales team of 8 account executives to focus on selling a cutting edge product into enterprise customers with over 1B in revenue
- Partnered with Marketing team to refine strategy resulting in a 25% increase in new logos.
- Increased sales pipeline by doubling the number of channel partners to over 60
- Introduced new ROI calculator that helped increase ASP by 35% from $10,000 to $13,500
- Used new solution sales focused approach to decrease sales cycle by 15% from 90 days to 76 days
Now, this is a data driven resume. It lists accomplishments, explains how the accomplishments were met, gives data to support the claims and then quantifies the data. I feel that a data-driven resume is the hardest to write for someone just starting their career, simply because they have fewer data points and accomplishments to write about. Senior-level people (10+ years’ experience) should have an easy time given the length and depth of their experience. However, senior-level people were taught to write resumes that only list accomplishment but don’t quantify them.
Your resume needs data; otherwise it is just another piece of paper.
Greg Scherzo is the Senior Corporate Recruiter at NetBrain Technologies. You can follow him on Twitter @GregScherzo.