Your Resume Should Be Results Oriented! But...They Need to Be the Right Results

Danielle Beatty
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Why even put results in your resume? It gives potential employers a clear image of what’s been accomplished.

If I take a walk and tell you it was good, you have no idea what that means. Did I feel good? Did I walk as long or as fast as I wanted? There’s a lot of questions floating around. But if I say I walked a mile in twenty minutes you have a clear picture of what I did. 

That’s what adding results does to your resume. It gives anyone reading it a crystal-clear image of what you have accomplished.

So, how do you add results?

First, measure what’s been done. Like the walking example, write the specifics. For example, writing “maintained workload” isn’t the clearest. By changing it to “maintained weekly workload of x number of reports” a potential employer knows exactly what you did.

There are several ways to write accomplishments, including PAR, which is a method to write results by stating the problem, the action taken to solve it and the direct result that occurred from that action. Something like, “Developed a new filing system saving the company $3,000 a year in labor expenses”, is an example of PAR. 

Next, include numbers that show achievements in money, time and people.

  • Money: How did your efforts impact the company’s money? This could be something like costs cut or profits increased. An example is “oversaw a department budget of $75,000 and decreased costs by 10%.” Writing how your work impacted the company financially catches potential employers’ attention.
     
  • Time: How did you improve efficiency? Something like, “Developed a new organization system decreasing turnaround time on projects by 50%” communicates this clearly.
     
  • People: Wherever we work, we impact people. If you oversaw a team, include something like “managed x number of people on specific team name.” Writing this on a resume shows potential employers how you directly impacted those you work for and with.

Having the right results in writing matters.

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  • Brian K.
    Brian K.

    nice

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