Job Hunting

Numbers, Numbers Everywhere!

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I frequently discuss the importance of including metrics in your resume, during your interviews, in your self-assessments / accomplishment reports, and anywhere you can. People are always telling me that they don’t have these numbers or can’t remember them.

Numbers are important because they give context to your work and they prove your accomplishments. If you say that you lead a team or manage a budget or generate reports, I have no way of knowing whether that team is 2 or 200, your budget is $1 or $100M, or you generate 1 report a quarter or 1 per week. When you are in the middle of doing your job, it’s easy to forget the impact of your work. And of course readers of your resume, interviewers, etc., will not have the framework for knowing that context. It is important for you to keep track and share both the context of your work and your impact with others. One way to think about this is to answer the question, “how many, how much, and how often.”

To be more specific, here are some questions to consider to help you identify numbers to use in your career documents:

  • Size of your budget
  • Size of your team (and for those of you who are supervisors, how many direct reports, indirect reports?)
  • How large is your territory? How many states / countries do you cover?
  • How many people do you support?
  • How many projects do you oversee at one time? What is their dollar value?
  • How long are your reports? How often do you write them?
  • Are all of your team members in one place or are they geographically dispersed? And if so, over how many states / countries / time zones?
  • How much money did you save?
  • By what percentage (or number of days) did you reduce processing time?
  • How many customers do you have?
  • Can you show a “before” and “after” comparison to demonstrate your impact—and quantify it?
  • How many contracts did you approve? What was their total dollar value?
  • How much growth did you see in customers? In sales? In something else?
  • How quickly were you promoted?
  • Did you complete something ahead of schedule? If so, by how many days / months?
  • Did you bring a project in under budget? If so, by how much in dollars?
  • How many audit findings did you identify? How many did you resolve?
  • What is your response time? Does that represent an improvement?
  • Did you reduce complaints? By how much?
  • Did you increase “clicks,” engagement? Morale? Something else? Be specific.
  • Did you reduce turnover / improve retention?
  • Did you increase profits / sales revenue / donations?
  • What was the average rating of classes you taught? How many classes? How many participants?
  • Did you reduce the error rate? By how much?

You get the idea! And of course, when using numbers in your accomplishments, be sure to use actions verbs: increased, shortened, improved, reduced, generated, etc. Be sure to track your numbers throughout your career so you have them available when needed. Using numbers in your resume, during interviews, and elsewhere to tout your accomplishments and provide context to your work is a real differentiator and will make you standout.

Branding Yourself on LinkedIn

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It’s been over a year since I last wrote about LinkedIn. In that time, LinkedIn has grown even more important—not less. If you are not using LinkedIn to brand yourself to potential employers, you are missing a huge opportunity. And if you haven’t looked at your LinkedIn profile in while, it’s probably past time to do a refresh.

When someone searches for you on LinkedIn, they will see 3 things: Your name, your LinkedIn Headline, and your location. In many cases, hiring managers will make the decision to read your full LinkedIn profile based on just these three things. Consequently, your LinkedIn Headline acts like a newspaper or magazine title. It gives the reader an idea of what your profile will include. Being specific results in a much better headline—but your headline should be more than just your job title. Great headlines attract attention, and the more people who view your LinkedIn profile, the better your chances of connecting with the right person who can lead you to your dream job.

Keywords also play an important part for you in being found by people who don’t know you on LinkedIn — this is particularly true for jobseekers who are hoping for contacts from prospective employers and recruiters. Keywords are a list of words and phrases that are related to your work — they are the words that a prospective employer would search for when trying to find someone like you. LinkedIn Headlines are searchable fields using the “People Search” function when someone is looking for particular skills, interests, qualifications, or credentials.

You can also incorporate keywords throughout your LinkedIn profile, including:

  • Your LinkedIn Headline
  • Current and former work experience
  • LinkedIn summary section
  • Specialties or Skills section

The keywords that you select for your profile must fit two criteria:

  • They must speak to what makes you unique and what you want to be known for.
  • They must align with what employers value — that is, what they want.

Choose your words carefully. When possible, incorporate in keywords — nouns or phrases that can be picked up through online searches and are prominently used in applicant tracking systems.

Although you can create different targeted versions of your résumé to target different types of positions, you’re limited to one LinkedIn profile—so make it count. Be specific and single out the training, experience, and/or results that set you apart. Someone who is reading your profile should be able to recognize YOU in it; if what you wrote could apply to anyone with your job title, go back to the drawing board. You don’t have to come up with anything earth-shattering – but remember that differentiating yourself will help you be found.

A couple of key things that will help you stand out on LinkedIn:

  • Write your Summary in the first person (after all, you’re talking about yourself).
  • Profiles with pictures attract 50-70% more inquiries than profiles without pictures. Have a good headshot of yourself. At a minimum, your photo should include your head and shoulders, not just your face. And remember, no extra arms over your shoulder!

Consider publishing on LinkedIn and commenting on others’ posts to increase your profile and demonstrate your expertise. Offer your opinion and expertise on key issues, dissect obscure (but job-related) topics, and link to other articles and blogs of interest.

Don’t forget to customize your LinkedIn URL (see: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/87/customizing-your-public-profile-url?lang=en) and include the link on your resume!