The one thing I changed about my resume that actually got callbacks

I spent like 6 months applying to jobs after college and got nothing but silence. I was using this dense paragraph style resume my school's career center told me to use, listing every little thing I did. A buddy of mine who works at a bigger firm in Atlanta finally told me to try something different. He said to put a single number at the top of each job, like "processed 30+ invoices daily" or "reduced report errors by 15%." I thought it sounded dumb but I tried it on a whim one Sunday night. Within two weeks I had three interviews lined up, which blew my mind. Has anyone else had a random tweak like that make a huge difference for them?

2 comments

2 Comments

finley_harris528d ago

Yeah that whole "processed 30+ invoices daily" thing is legit. I did something similar when I was stuck in a rut, swapped out vague stuff for actual numbers and got way more interviews in like a month. Your buddy nailed it, details like that just catch their eye different.

rowanbennett28d ago

Oh I totally get what you mean @finley_harris5, and you're right that numbers help. But I gotta say, "processed 30+ invoices daily" isn't really the best example of a solid metric. If someone processes 30 invoices a day, that's like 150 a week which seems really low for an actual job unless it's a small company. Something like "processed 200+ invoices weekly" or "handled 80+ customer orders per shift" sounds way more believable and still gives that same impact. The key is making sure the number actually fits the role and doesn't raise eyebrows from whoever's reading it. What kind of numbers did you use that worked best for you?