How to Add Metrics to Resume [When You Don’t Have Data]

You’ve probably heard it a dozen times, you need to add quantifiable results and metrics to your resume. For some of us, that’s easy to do when we’re senior-level executives with tons of data at our disposal. But what about the rest of us? What about those of us who worked for start-ups or companies that didn’t do a great job at tracking any metrics? And what about those of us who don’t have access to this information because our supervisors didn’t share it?

Are we simply destined to never get another job because we don’t have an equal playing field? In this article, I’m going to help you level that unequal playing field by proposing ways you can figure out some metrics (even if you don’t have data). And no, I’m not going to tell you to just make stuff up. That would be lying and that’s wrong.

What Are Resume Metrics

First, let’s get a working definition of what a resume metric is exactly. Resume metrics are quantifiable data points that give the hiring team context about your experience or evidence that you can perform. Think of them like KPIs (key performance indicators) for your resume.

Resume metrics are not just about including numbers (contrary to popular belief). They’re about including the right numbers that show your alignment and qualifications for the job you are applying for. They’ve got to be the right metrics that matter to the hiring team. I’ll talk more about this later, but I’ve seen resumes with great metrics - they were just the wrong metrics.

Context Metrics

There are only two types of metrics you need to worry about in a resume. The first ones are context-based. Context-based metrics are exactly what the name says. They provide context to your work experience.

For example, if you managed 20 people. That’s context. Someone who manages 20 people has a different skill set and ability compared to someone who manages 200 people.

Or if you were an account manager and you were assigned 5 enterprise accounts. That’s different from someone who may have been assigned 50 SMB accounts.

Context matters and it’s a good way to differentiate yourself. Just be sure that you’re providing the context that differentiates you in the right way.

Results Metrics

The other kinds of metrics that are more frequently talked about in resume circles are achievement or results-based metrics. These metrics focus more on giving the hiring team evidence that you are, in fact, good at your job.

For example, if part of the job requirements is to lead project briefs, you might use a metric such as:

• Standardized project briefs and kickoffs, reducing delays and resulting in 15% more projects being finished on time.

Why Resume Metrics Matter

Everyone qualified for a job will write the same things in their resume. If you were a Staff Accountant, you would probably write about booking journal entries, reconciling balance sheet accounts, and assisting with month-end close. Everyone will write and should write those things.

Therein lies the problem. If you stop there, you’ll look like everyone else. This month I went through and analyzed a little over 20,000 resumes in my ATS (applicant tracking system) and found that only a third of them (32% to be exact) included consistent context and evidence-based metrics throughout the resume.

Doing this right will make a huge difference and here’s why.

Metrics Differentiate You

Metrics provide context and evidence. They differentiate you and substantiate your claims.

Just because you did something, doesn’t mean you were good at it. On your resume, you need to show people that you are good at the things you do. And the way you do that is by using metrics.

Metrics Show You Know Your Stuff

Every high-achieving professional I’ve ever met knew what made them successful. They held themselves accountable for great work and reflected on what they could do better. They climbed corporate ladders, got promotions, and earned raises because they knew what success looked like and they kept score.

Knowing your performance metrics in a job shows you understand what matters and you hold yourself accountable for your performance. By simply having these metrics, you’re already giving yourself a huge differentiation among your peers.

Metrics Show Your Abilities

Metrics give hiring teams a look at what success could look like with you on the team. Unfortunately, most resumes are vague and lack metrics and it’s hard to know exactly what someone is capable of in those instances.

But when you include metrics, hiring teams know exactly what to expect (all things being equal). They provide real, clear, specific, and tangible images of your abilities. If you did it once, you can do it again. And that is what hiring teams need to see before they will take action and interview you.

Metrics Create Belief

As my grandma used to say, the proof is in the pudding. Metrics help you show rather than tell. Who are you more likely to believe? The person who says they are self-motivated or the person who tells you about how they realized a gap in customer coverage and collaborated with 3 departments to change a process, pitched it to their boss, and changed the process company-wide resulting in a 10% bump in customer satisfaction?

You and I both know who you’re going to believe. Metrics give you credibility.

How to Add Metrics to a Resume

Here is an easy way to add metrics to your resume.

Review Previous Job Experiences

Reflect on each of your jobs. Review notes you kept and performance reviews. If you didn’t keep any notes, make this something you change going forward. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What were you hired to do at each company and in each position?

• What evidence do you have that supports you being good at those things?

Review Job Descriptions

Next, read the job description for the job you’re applying for. If you’re writing a segmented master resume, review a few job descriptions. Take each responsibility and required qualification and turn it into an interview question.

For example, if the job description mentions that one of your duties will be to manage budgets and project schedules, you would ask yourself how you can show that you are good at managing budgets and project schedules.

Your answer might be the fact that across your career you’ve managed over 200 project budgets and two-thirds of them have come in under budget and completed on time.

How to Find Resume Metrics When You Don’t Have Data Points

That’s all great, but what if you don’t have access to data and performance metrics from your past jobs? Some resume writers and coaches say to just make it up because no one will verify it. That bothers me because this is your reputation we’re talking about and someone somewhere just might verify it.

So rather than listen to bad advice like that, I’ll propose some ways you can work through this on your own.

Estimate, Don’t Guess

There is a difference between guessing and estimating. A guess would be me coming up with a random answer based on what I think could be realistic. I don’t know your career, I wasn’t there during the conversations you had at your last job, and I certainly don’t know the nuances of the work you did and who you did it with. That would be a guess.

You on the other hand were there. You lived your experience. You had people walking up to you saying, “Wow, what a great job you did on that project.” You had customers thanking you because this was the best experience they’ve ever had. You know how many new deals you closed on average each week or month. Sure you don’t have the specifics written down, but based on your lived experience, you can come up with a pretty good estimate of what those numbers probably were.

Estimates are great for resumes because most of the things we include are about correlations and not definitive causation. I know that sounds confusing so let me explain.

When I write a resume bullet point that says “Reduced escalation logs by 30% through the addition of e-learning seminars,” I’m not implying that one thing was the only thing that caused that result. I’m saying there was a correlation. It was a significant and relevant factor in achieving that.

Deposition Yourself

If you’ve ever sat through a deposition before, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Estimating can be hard, so if you think you increased productivity by 10%, ask yourself, “Was it more like 10% or 20%.” If the answer is 20%, then ask yourself, “Was it more like 20% or 30%.” And keep doing that until you get to a number that you are comfortable with and believe is an accurate estimation of your achievement.

Compare Yourself to Chad

Chad is bad. He’s the worst person you can imagine for your job. So in the absence of data, ask yourself, how bad would it be if it was Chad instead of me? How much better was my performance? What could have happened if Chad had missed something or messed something up? What could that have done to customers, the company, or profitability? The difference is the metric you can use.

Before and After

Think about the first day you started your last job. What was the situation? What was it like? What did the customers, employees, and managers say? How bad were the problems? Take note of all of that. Then reflect on how it was when you left. What did you improve? How much did it improve? What was better than when you found it? You can then use an estimation to come up with a metric.

Where to Add Metrics on a Resume

You can add metrics to your resume in the following sections:

• Resume Summary

• Key Qualifications

• Work Experience Summaries

• Work Experience Bullet Points

• Education

If you’re not familiar with these sections and what they refer to, consult the Definitive Guide to Resume Writing.

How to Include Metrics in a Resume Tips

Be Specific

Numbers are specific, that is the point of adding metrics. While you can use percentages and ranges, it’s always best to be as specific as you possibly can.

Pick Important Ones

Sometimes our previous jobs are different from the job we are applying for next. Don’t fall into the trap of writing about your previous work experience as if you were compiling a documentary about your career. That’s not a winning strategy.

Instead, ask yourself what metrics would show that I’m good at the things this job needs me to be good at. Write those metrics. While you may be proud of reducing inventory obsolescence by 25%, if you’re applying for a sales role now, that may not be the best metric to write about.

Data Not Visuals

Whenever I poll my recruiting colleagues and hiring managers, one thing remains the same every year. Everyone wants to read data points and numbers. No one wants to see visual graphs. My guess is that’s because most of us (resume writers included) aren’t experts in conveying data visually. Just because your chart looks pretty, doesn’t mean it conveys context and clarity.

Use Numbers

While this may be intuitive, we are talking about metrics after all, what numbers to use often are not. Use things like dollars, time, number of items, and percentages. Dollars and time are better than percentages because they are more specific, but you can also make percentages work.

Keep in mind when working with percentages that context is often needed. Twenty percent may sound impressive until you find out it was 20% of $100. On the other hand, 4% may not sound that impressive until you realize it was 4% of $3.2 billion.

Connect the Dots

Don’t assume that the recruiter or hiring manager understands the importance of your metric. They didn’t work with you or at your previous company. Be sure you tell them what you achieved, how you achieved it, and why it was important.

For example, telling someone you increased sales by 10% is good. But connecting the dots and telling them that you increased sales by 10% in the first month by leveraging CRM data to call on competitors of existing clients gives them much more context.

What Metrics Should You Include On a Resume

The answer to this depends on the job you’re seeking more than the jobs you’ve had in the past. You want to choose metrics that provide evidence that you are good at the responsibilities the job requires from you. Those metrics should also include both context-based metrics and results-based metrics as we discussed earlier.

With that being said, here are some ideas to get you started. Answer these questions and think about the metrics that go along with them based on your previous experiences.

Volume

How much of something did you do? How many invoices did you process? How big was your pipeline? How many accounts did you manage?

Sales or Revenue

How much were you able to increase sales and in what timeframe?

Were you able to improve conversion rates?

Did you reduce cost per conversion?

Profitability and Efficiencies

Were you able to increase department profitability?

Did you decrease project costs and spending?

Were you able to reduce overhead operating costs without sacrificing quality?

Did you improve efficiency of a process or team in terms of time or percentage?

Did you increase output?

How much faster were you than everyone else and how much money did that save the company?

Did you identify bottlenecks that saved the company money?

Customer Relationships

Were you able to retain more customers?

Did you increase CSAT scores?

Were you able to increase the number of new customer referrals due to your service?

Did you reduce customer response times?

Partnerships

How many partnerships did you create or manage?

Did you increase revenue through your partnerships?

People Management

Did you reduce unwanted employee turnover in your department?

How many people did you lead?

Did you improve employee engagement and performance?

How many people were promoted due to your mentorship and coaching?

Did you scale a department? By how much?

Analytics

How many projects did you analyze or how much data?

How many models did you build?

What outcomes happened because of the recommendations and insight you gave based on your analysis?

How Do I Know If I Have Enough Metrics

While I don’t know if you can have too many metrics, I do think you can have the wrong metrics and end up with a distracting resume, or worse, a narcissistic resume. When determining whether you have enough metrics, go through this process.

1. Read the job description and list every function they want you to perform in the role.

2. Ask yourself, did I show that I have done this function before on my resume?

3. Ask yourself, did I show that I’m good at that function on my resume by using metrics?

4. Ask yourself, did I show them that I’m capable of performing at their level (volume and context metrics)?

If your answer to numbers two, three, and four is yes, then you probably have enough metrics. If it is no to any of those three questions, consider where you can add more metrics. Sometimes this is hard to do because we’re close to our work and we’re used to viewing it a certain way. If you’re struggling, consider working with a resume writer or career coach to help you uncover your metrics.

AI Tools to Help You Create Metrics

Artificial intelligence has come a long way in the past ten years and there are currently some apps on the market that can help you generate metric ideas for your resume. Here are three that I recommend.

• Huntr - best overall for bullet points

• Teal - best for achievement-based metrics

• Hiration - best for context-based metrics

All of these you can try for free. If you want a full review of these and others, along with how to use them, check out my post on Resume Bullet Point Generators.

Resume Metrics Examples

A few months ago I created the Weekend Resume Makeover course. It was designed to help people understand everything they need to about resumes and write their own in the time of a weekend. It has nearly 1,000 examples of resume metrics included in the over 50 sample resumes that span dozens of industries. Here are some examples from that course.

Accounting Resume Metric Example

Primary point of contact for SAP implementation from AS400; cleaned up and transferred over 5,000 records during merger with European company.

Administration Resume Metric Example

Given spending authority of $200,000, managing credit cards and bank accounts for athletes with financial responsibility for over $200M.

Customer Success Resume Metric Example

Doubled revenue per customer on 25% of all accounts by identifying future opportunities by asking the right questions and mushrooming accounts.

DEI Resume Metric Example

Increased ERG inclusion by 25% through a redesign of a programming survey to capture open-ended information which led to actionable feedback.

Enablement Resume Metric Example

Led the development and rollout of 10 new initiatives, leading to monthly revenue growth of $90M.

Government & NGO Resume Metric Example

Collaborated with film producers to create 6 get out the vote campaigns resulting in an 18% increase in voter turnout to support the passage of SB555.

Healthcare Resume Metric Example

Built a steering committee with 3 charge nurses to standardize a SOP across 17 clinics; improving employee satisfaction, retention, and productivity.

Human Resources Resume Metric Example

Standardize onboarding workflows to increase manager visibility into the process and reduce onboarding timelines by 7 days on average.

Information Technology Resume Metric Example

Drove $3.7M in savings through a Tech Tuesday initiative that educated employee segments on efficient technology use and prevented unnecessary spending.

Marketing Resume Metric Example

Initiated a strategic ICP campaign to identify correct psychographics and tailor marketing messaging resulting in a 267% increase in customer engagement.

Mortgage Resume Metric Example

Underwrote and funded an additional 25% of suspended loan files by partnering with stakeholders to find alternative paths forward and obtain buy-in on new solutions.

Operations Resume Metric Example

Automated a partnership process allowing teams to pull statements directly from partners, reducing unnecessary communication between teams and customers by 15%.

Project Management Resume Metric Example

Led 30 project briefs, translating technical and non-technical information between coders, operational leaders, and project managers; resolving 15 system issues within 2 months.

Sales Resume Metric Example

Booked an average of 90 appointments for account executives per week with an average conversion rate of 35%.

Supply Chain Resume Metric Example

Led a just in time manufacturing plan that accounted for anomalies in demand plan and reduced raw materials on hand by 11% while improving margins by 4%.

Writing Future Resume Metrics

Hopefully, this article helps you identify some resume metrics for your current resume update. But I also think it’s important to plan for the future. All jobs are temporary and there is a high chance that this won’t be the last resume you write. With that being said, let’s talk about how to make this easier on you in the future.

First, hold yourself accountable for your work and create ways to measure your success. Don’t rely on your managers or company to do it for you. They may track metrics that don’t even make sense (let’s face it, not everyone is good at this stuff).

Talk to the manager at your current company and your future jobs to find out what matters to them. What does success in your role look like to them and how would they keep score? Ask them. You’ll gain some valuable insights.

Keep all this information in a spreadsheet or document that you can access even if you lose access to your company computer and files. You need to be able to keep this information. Don’t keep sensitive company information in a non-secure location, but keep your personal scorecard metrics.

If you do these things, you’ll not only make it easier to update your resume in the future but you’ll also increase the value you add to your current organization. You may even wind up with a raise or promotion.

How to Add Metrics to Resume Recommended Reading

How Many Bullet Points Per Job on a Resume

The Best Resume Bullet Point Generators

Do You Put Periods After Bullet Points On a Resume

Cole Sperry has been a recruiter and resume writer since 2015, working with tens of thousands of job seekers, and hundreds of employers. Today Cole runs a boutique advisory firm consulting with dozens of recruiting firms and is the Managing Editor at OptimCareers.com.