I often come upon a situation that is a real wake-up call for people. When I am preparing a resume, especially for managers and executives, we need to impress potential employers by highlighting the achievements that were produced. That boils down to showing percentage improvements in quality, productivity, costs and so on. Yet many people haven’t bothered to save their numbers, particularly when they are trying to remember past year’s accomplishments.
Connie is an IT Director with an impressive track record spanning over 15 years. Although she knows that she made dramatic improvements in project delivery times, she cannot quantify her results. How powerful would it be to say "Introduced best practices, tools and methodologies that slashed project delivery times 22% and costs by 29%"? Instead, Connie can only say she significantly produced improvements. Not quite the same level of credibility and impact is it?
So the moral of this story is to create a file that demonstrates your positive impact on the business. Start it today and one day, you will be glad you did.
October 20, 2007 | Permalink
Save Your Numbers
