Why Measuring Impact is Important
Giving people a picture of what you can achieve is easier with numbers.
Why is this even important?
Well, you are in a marketing and sales role in seeking a job, or looking for freelance work - you are marketing your skills with your career assets, then selling that background and skills to someone when you talk to them.
With your career assets, you want to give people a chance to easily compare and contrast so they contact you. At the contact point is when you are switching into sales mode.
A successful resume, or any career asset, is one where a recruiter and/or hiring manager looks at it and sees the impact you can make in a company. It’s easier to do this with numbers than words. You want to go for the unshakable yes (the $%*# yes, the hell yes, the ‘stop everything and hire this person’ yes).
Numbers do a few things better than words:
Clear Evidence, No room for ambiguity: Much easier to envision someone making 30 calls a day with a 20% conversion rate as opposed to ‘many calls a day with some new clients’. This clear evidence also infers your ability to communicate clearly, because of that erasure of ambiguity.
Results-Oriented: Show that you are thinking about what you’ve done in the past as something impactful, which is both a skill and a focus businesses want. You don’t have to say you are results-oriented, you can show it by showing the results. Businesses need people who understand how their work ties into the broader business objectives and outcomes.
Stands Out: Metrics catch eyes where words do not, they are more memorable and easier to distinguish from others. Draw a mental image of what your day looks like and the impact you make. The more people can ‘see’ you in the role the more they’ll get into the ‘yes’ zone.
Shows Accountability and Ownership: Numbers demonstrate that you own and actively measure your success. This conveys professionalism and a commitment to delivering value. Again, don’t say you are a professional or committed to delivering value - show it.
Translates your impact quickly: Hiring managers can more easily envision how your contributions could translate into success for their team or company. For example, saving $20K in operational costs or reducing a process timeline by 30% makes your impact tangible. That could be their very goal, or they could have one close to it.
How does one even begin to do this?
The short answer is to start by asking with every action, every ‘thing’ - can a number, percentage, or something be put on it?
You may not need all of them but if you start bullet by bullet and asking yourself “How would I measure success if I had to report to a manager how it was going?” you are well on your way.
Examples:
You say you: “Collaborated closely with senior executives and project managers for subcontract documentation”.
I’d want to know: How many senior execs, and project managers did you help or guide?
Any titles/people - how many?
You say you: Oversaw research requests
I’d want to know: How many research requests, how long did they typically take, was there something particularly challenging about them?
Any action you did - How many? How long? How difficult?
You say you: Managed RFP's, RFI's, and RFQ's, ensuring adherence to deadlines.
I’d want to know: How many RFPs, RFIs, RFQs - how did you assure adherence to deadlines and was that 100% of the time? Were you able to improve a process from before with this adherance?
Any action you did - How many? How long? How difficult?
Any measurement or mention of adherence to deadline/guideline/quality - How did you do that? What was the success rate? Were you able to improve the success rate?
You say you: Successfully managed operational functions
I’d want to know: What level of your workload was operational functions - was it half your time - were you able to improve a process there, reduce costs, or increase any happiness or service metrics?
Anything managed/coordinated/supported - How much time did it take? Were you able to improve a process? Lower costs? Increase productivity? Were there any metrics to measure the success you can speak to?
If you want more help in understanding how to measure your impact, check out our posts on How Metrics Aren’t the Only Way to Measure Impact and the Math Problems of Measuring Impact.
Questions? Let me know.
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