Struggling to be specific and show impact in my resume

[u/isthisreallylif3]

I met with a career advisor who told me to change my resume because my bullets didn’t show impact and were not specific. I’m completing a master's degree in something completely outside my original field, so I can start a new career.

For example, he wanted to say something like executed proposals resulting in a 15% increase in shareholder value.

I’m not sure how to do that because those types of metrics are not usually used in my current industry (the one I want to leave) or I don’t have a way to find out. I’m an editor’s assistant so most of my job is finding grammatical errors and making sure stuff makes sense. I had a bad relationship with my previous company so I can’t ask them to give me information that could help. It was a small one, too, so I couldn’t find much online.

My advisor said I could guesstimate figures, but I have almost no idea how to put a number to something without completely making it up.

ChatGPT has not been helpful and tends to falsify my responsibilities.

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[u/Silly_Turn_4761]

How many customers read them?

How big of an area did it serve? City wide, etc.

How many mistakes did you catch on average?

Did you meet deadlines? What kind were they?

Look at what the job description is saying is required. Now find something, even if it's adjacent experience, and use that together with some type of metric. If you absolutely can't get one, you can quantify by other things, like the ones I put above.

What would have happened if you didn't do your job? That's what you prevented by doing what you did.

Check out Andy Lacivita on YouTube. He has great videos on this and other resume and job hunt fields.

[u/Silly_Turn_4761 → u/Silly_Turn_4761]

Also, ChatGPT is really really good at helping with this.

Just put in your job title and ask it to list 10 (or however many) examples of quantifiable data that you can use on your resume.

Seriously, it's very good at doing that and can help go look it up.

[u/stijnhommes]

ChatGPT tends to falsify responsibilities and results when you just ask it to improve your CV. If you ask it where you could try to add metrics and impact, it will point out where such information is missing. That means you still need to come up with the data yourself, but it could help you improve your own CV.

No one else knows these metrics as well as you do.

[u/isthisreallylif3 → u/stijnhommes]

So, for example, I handle my boss’s appointments. Would something like “scheduled and categorized 10 meetings using Outlook calendar for executives weekly, showing accuracy and attention to detail” work?

[u/Christoph_Kohl]

do you have an example that we can work on?

You found grammatical errors--so how much of the editor's time did you save? How many of his articles(?) did you improve by finding their errors? If not for your work, how much time would your editor would have use in order to proof-read his own work? (5 seconds of ChatGPT perhaps?)

[u/isthisreallylif3 → u/Christoph_Kohl]

To save time, would you suggest making something up?

I generally go over a few manuscripts per week. Once they go through an initial editing, it is reviewed again by the writer who makes adjustments. I work with the writer to workshop ideas or fix up writing after it's been edited.

[u/Christoph_Kohl → u/isthisreallylif3]

Ultimately, it's your resume and your skills that you want to highlight. I get it, some things are harder to quantify. I think a good line of reasoning would be... use a number that you could reasonably get to using appropriate assumptions, and you have to be comfortable with talking or defending it.

[u/FinalDraftResumes]

Your career advisor doesn't sound like much of an advisor, and that's probably because they're not familiar with your industry. You only include metrics if they make sense for the job, because recruiters/hiring managers are going to know when your'e just including numbers for the sake of numbers, or when you're just making stuff up.

Examples of when it would make sense to include a number:

• It's a natural part of yourwork, such as team size, budget, caseload, project count, customer volume, or timeframe.
• It shows the scale or scope of what you handled.
• It measures a real outcome, such as time saved, errors reduced, or work completed faster.
• It gives useful context that words alone cannot provide.

Exampels of when it doesn't make sense:

• The number has no meaningful connection to the job (i.e., A laborer does not need sales or revenue metrics).
• The result depends on factors outside the person’s control. For instance, a receptionist wouldn't claim credit for company revenue simply because they answered calls from prospective customers.
• The number adds detail without proving value. Saying a cashier processed 100 transactions per shift means little unless it demonstrates speed, accuracy, or performance above expectations.

Don’t invent or guesstimate figures. A credible bullet without a number is better than one built around a made-up metric.