Putting Quantified Results On Your Resume

Join Isaiah as he explains how to add quantified results to your industry resume and why this matters if you want to get hired

Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode…

• First, Isaiah discusses the importance of quantified results for industry employers
• Next, Isaiah discloses why PhDs have so much trouble coming up with and claiming the results they achieved.
• Finally, Isaiah presents the best way to add technical skills to your resume bullet points

From This Week’s Show… 

The Importance Of Quantified Results

Every single bullet point on your resume needs to end in a qualified result.

You can easily transition to this part of your bullet point using language like “resulting in…” “as demonstrated by…” or “as evidence by…”.

It’s challenging to sit down and figure out your past results and then to quantify them? Yes. It’s certainly more challenging than just listing skills, duties and experiences in your resume, but is the only way to move past the resume stage to the phone screen stage.

Studies have shown that employers’ eyes pause at length on numbers. But there’s a catch. The numbers have to be written numerically, as in the number “10”, not “ten”.

Examples of qualified results include:

• “resulting in # of ABC reports”
• “resulting in # poster presentations on ABC topic”
• “resulting in # publications including a publication in ABC journal”
• “as evidenced by # collaborations including a collaboration with ABC research group”

Whereby “#” refers to a numerical value like “10”. The main reason this process is so hard for PhDs is because many PhDs experience a sense of imposter syndrome when formulating the results section of their bullet points.

Industry Perceives Results Differently Than Academia

PhDs often feel like they can’t claim a result as an achievement if anyone else was involved. If somebody else touched the figure, paper, or presentation, these PhDs think it was a joint effort and feel guilty writing “resulting in XYZ”.

They feel like they are writing, “resulting in XYZ that I achieved all by myself without anyone’s help”. This is ridiculous.

You need to claim the results that you were a part of because no one is going to claim your results for you. If you don’t have the courage to claim ownership in part or in whole over your past achievements, why would any employer ever hire you?

Because you want others to have the credit? Because you are a passive team player? These are not the values that industry employers are looking for when seeking out job candidates.

Instead, they are seeking those who have the courage to stand up and say, “I did this” and “here’s why it matters”.

If you’re stuck determining which results to claim on your resume, consider the following list of examples.

• Number of publications
• Number of presentations
• Number of reports
• Number of discoveries, innovations
• Number of volunteer experiences
• Number of optimized or innovated systems
• Number of collaborations
• Number of completed projects
• Number of teams led, mentored
• Number of team outcomes
• Number of students taught
• Number of certifications
• Number of grants, patents
• Amount of grant funding

Where In Your Resume Bullet Points Should You Add Technical Skills

To finalize the perfect 3-part bullet point for your industry resume, you’ll need to sandwich the transferable skills you placed at the beginning with the quantified results you placed at the end.

How do you make this sandwich? With your technical or specialty skills, but only those that are relevant to the job at hand.

Examples of how to structure these technically-stacked connecting phrases, along with their content, include:

• “with in-depth knowledge of XYZ research technique”
• “experience in XYZ instrument including XYZ instrument”
• “with an ability to develop and test questionnaires related to XYZ field”
• “with an ability to interpret study results related to XYX field”.

If you’re ready to start your transition into industry, you can apply to book a free Transition Call with our founder Isaiah Hankel, PhD or one of our Transition Specialists. Apply to book a Transition Call here.