3 Reasons Why You Should Add Numbers to Your Resume

For most industries – numbers are the most important part of your resume. Now this may be obvious for a sales resume or a management resume, but really numbers apply to everyone. They quantify each of your accountabilities and achievements, and therefore add credibility to your experience.

Numbers do not only apply to revenue increases, as many people assume. You can include numbers for a full multitude of points on a resume:

• # of clients acquired in a given period of time
• # of locations opened/closed
• # of files organized
• # of people you trained
• # of people you hired
• # of people you managed
• % of client satisfaction
• % of client retention
• % of client referrals

Do you get the point?

Numbers and percentages can refer to money, clients, team members, files, products, locations, and many more options. Now if you’re not inclined to include numbers in your resume just because we say so, well here are our Top 3 Reasons to convince you.

1. Quantify your achievements

When you tell a Hiring Manager that you grew the client base substantially, they are thinking “that’s great, but what do you consider substantial?”

When you include the specific number, you are automatically clarifying what you consider substantial. Whether you grew the client base from 0 to 15, or from 100 to 150,000; the Hiring Manager can now quantify your achievements.

Quantifying your achievements is incredibly important when referring to increases that you propelled in your position. Your numbers are something to be proud of, and if you don’t include them, the Hiring Manager may automatically assume that they were not impressive enough to highlight.

If for confidentiality reasons you are unable to include exact figures in your resume, we recommend using percentages. This way, you are still able to give the Hiring Manager a rough quantity that you were able to achieve.

2. Provide context

Numbers will provide context to your role and your accountabilities. This is especially important for candidates in management roles.

If you managed three departments, and each department had 45 employees each, the Hiring Manager needs to know those numbers, as it will impress them.

This is also true for clarifying the number of your direct/indirect reports, again this provides context to your role. Another area where context is important is the description of the company where you were working.

When working for smaller and unknown companies, a company description is often helpful for the Hiring Manager to better understand your role.

Your previous employer may be a lesser known company, but their numbers can still be impressive. You can include numbers such as the annual revenue, full number of employees, number of locations, etc.

This way, even if the Hiring Manager has never heard of this company before, they will already understand the scope and depth of your role within the organization.

3. Catch the hiring manager’s attention

Quantifying your achievements and providing context are also two concepts used to catch the Hiring Manager’s attention through your content, but in this section, we’re referring to visual representation.

If you were tasked with reading 100 resumes a day, you would eventually start skimming the documents for important information.

In the process of skimming, it will be numbers that will pop out at you and catch your attention.

This is an added benefit to including numbers on your resume. If the Hiring Manager is skimming through your information and sees figures such as “$4 million increase in revenues” or “managed a team of 60 staff across 5 locations”, they will automatically stop to learn more.

It’s human nature, if you scroll through this post, you will easily be able to point out the numbers, because they stand out amongst the rest of the text.