How to Add Metrics & KPIs to Your CV [Free Tool]

Why CV Metrics Matter to Recruiters

While most applicants do a fine job explaining what they did in their roles on a day-to-day basis, recruiters are looking to see measurable results.

“By the time a candidate reaches the executive level, they should be able to showcase their strengths and back them up with tangible accomplishments that demonstrate they’ve made an impact in their previous roles,” Jon Hill, a recruiter from The Energists, explained.

In today’s competitive recruiting environment, metrics help differentiate you from other similar applicants, increasing your chances of securing interviews.

In this article, we discuss:

1. Why Should I Add Metrics to My CV?
2. Which Metrics Should I Include on My CV?
3. How Should I Incorporate Metrics In My CV?
4. How Can I Check if My CV Includes Enough Metrics?

1. Why Should I Add Metrics to My CV?

You should add metrics and KPIs to your CV to demonstrate the tangible impact your work made on an organisation, make your claims more believable and show that you are a results-driven and action-oriented individual.

• Metrics Demonstrate the Impact of Your Work

At the executive level, it’s not enough to simply outline your day-to-day responsibilities on your CV.

As Darrell Rosenstein, a recruiter from The Rosenstein Group  explained, “I want to see hard results and achievements…. Not just in words, but more importantly, in numbers."

"Someone who is gunning for a top-management position must show their capacity to provide high-level solutions to the macro problems that any company has to deal with.”

• Metrics Make Your Claims More Believable

On your CV, always aim to “show” instead of “tell.

We come across many CVs that utilise overused buzzwords and phrases such as:

• Seasoned executive
• Self-motivated professional
• Entrepreneurial leader
• Passionate, driven sales professional

Instead of using exaggerated language that may elicit an eye roll from your reader, aim to incorporate metrics that demonstrate these characteristics and increase your overall credibility.

• Metrics Show that You Are Results-Driven and Action-Oriented

Most importantly, metrics enable you to write accomplishment-driven bullet points and serve as a testament to the fact that you care about delivering results.

By adding metrics to your CV, you help recruiters and hiring managers to get a much better sense of how you will be able to practically add value to their organisations.

2. Which Metrics Should I Include on My CV?

You can find relevant metrics to add to your CV no matter what type of role or industry you work in. Consider incorporating metrics related to sales and revenue, profitability, costs, people, marketing, partnerships, performance and operations and data analysis.

To some extent, the metrics you have available will depend on how performance is measured in your current role or industry. However, even if you aren’t evaluated based on specific figures, you can still brainstorm ways to quantify certain elements of your role.

A writer, for example, can quantify how many articles he wrote or how much web traffic his content was able to drive.

A teacher can quantify how many students she taught or how much her students improved their standardised test scores as a result of her efforts.

As you prepare your CV, reflect on the categories of metrics and KPIs below. Under each category, we also included questions to help you brainstorm information you could potentially add to your document.

• Sales & Revenue Metrics

• Revenue Growth: By how much did you increase revenue on a month-over-month or year-over-year basis (either in total or for a given product)?

• Conversion Rate: By how much did you increase conversions?

• Frequency: How often did you execute sales campaigns?

• Customer Growth: By how much did you increase revenue for new customers versus existing customers?

• Profitability & Cost Metrics

• Company Net Profit: By how much did you improve the company’s net profit?

• Departmental Profit: By how much did you improve departmental profitability?

• Project Costs: By how much did you decrease project costs?

• Operating Costs: By how much did you reduce operating costs and in what areas?

• People & HR-related Metrics

• Recruitment: How many people did you interview or hire? Were you able to decrease the average time to hire?

• Team Leadership: How many people did you lead? How many teams did you oversee?

• Retention: By how much did you improve customer or team member retention or decrease turnover?

• Engagement: By how much did you improve employee engagement?

• Marketing Metrics

• Cost Per Conversion: By how much were you able to reduce cost per conversion?

• ROI: What was the ROI of your advertising campaigns?

• Traffic: How much were you able to increase store or online traffic?

• Content: How many articles did you write or ads did you create? Do you have any relevant engagement metrics?

• Emails: What was the email open/response rate you achieved?

• Phone Calls: How many leads did you contact and what percentage were you able to convert?

• Partnership & Deal-Related Metrics

• Quantity: How many partnerships did you create, deals did you close or clients did you manage?

• Impact: What impact did the partnerships that you established have on the organisation in terms of revenue, funding or sales growth?

• Size: What was the size of the average deal you worked on?

• Performance & Operations Metrics

• Efficiency: How much were you able to improve efficiency in time or percentage terms?

• Output: By how much did you increase productivity or output?

• Client Satisfaction: How much did you improve customer satisfaction metrics such as CSAT or first response time?

• Analysis-Related Metrics

• Projects: How many projects did you analyse?

• Modelling: How many Excel models did you create? How many people used them?

• Outcomes: What results were you able to drive by leveraging insights from your analysis?

• Web: How did you improve website metrics such as bounce rate or domain authority?

3. How Should I Incorporate Metrics in My CV?

When adding metrics to your CV, be sure to put them into context for your readers, helping them understand exactly why a given metric is relevant or impressive.

As Kelly Garland, Principal of Garland Source, explained, “Your [CV should demonstrate] that you are an impact player, able to drive change and make improvements [and] solve pain. Make that clear and visible.”

To provide adequate context, answer the following questions for your readers:

• When (did you achieve the metric)?
• How (did this metric benefit the organisation)?
• Why (was improving this metric or KPI important)?

Below, we provide examples of how you can add context to your metrics by asking yourself these questions.

• When?

• Before: Increased sales by 10%
• After: Increased sales by 10% in the first two months of entering the role

• Before: Signed 4 new hotel development deals
• After: Signed 4 new hotel development deals in 2020, which are scheduled to open by Q4 2021

• How?

• Before: Decreased project completion time by 25%
• After: Decreased project completion time by 25% by creating a new project management workflow in Asana

• Before: Reduced cost of goods sold by 12%
• After: Reduced cost of goods sold by 12% via contract renegotiations with 4 major suppliers and employee training to reduce waste

• Why?

• Before: Wrote 15 blog posts
• After: Wrote 15 blog posts to improve website traffic via SEO optimisation strategies

• Before: Developed and rolled out 4 new Excel forecasting models
• After: Developed and rolled out 4 new Excel forecasting models that reduced month-end reporting time by 30%

How Can I Check If My CV Includes Enough Metrics?

To quickly see which metrics are already present on your CV, copy and paste it into the tool provided by Jobscan below.

 

Not impressed by the results? Read through the questions above to help you identify areas that you could potentially elaborate on.

In Summary

Never underestimate the importance of including metrics on your CV, as recruiters expect to see recruiters expect to see accomplishment-driven bullet points that demonstrate your value-add.

If you are currently employed, make it a priority to track your performance at work using an Excel spreadsheet or note-taking app.

You’ll not only be able to leverage this data on your CV moving forward, but you’ll also be able to bring it up during performance reviews.

By incorporating KPIs into your bullet points, tailoring your CV to your target roles and keeping your formatting simple, you will put yourself on the right track for a successful job search.

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