Tag: resume advice

KPI’s and Your Resume

KPI’s are Key Performance Indicators. They are the metrics that drive the overall performance of an organization. KPI’s are critical to a company’s success and are an important element in your resume. If you don’t discuss KPI’s on your resume, you should.

KPI’s are Key Performance Indicators. They are the metrics that drive the overall performance of an organization. KPI’s are critical to a company’s success and are an important element in your resume. If you don’t discuss KPI’s on your resume, you should.

A KPI is a measure of an activity that provides an indication of success or failure. Every industry has different metrics that drive performance. You should know the KPI’s that are important in your organization, and how you affect these KPI’s. If you don’t know your KPI’s, you’re going to have a tougher time in your search.

The reason KPI’s are so important is two-fold. First, many hiring managers want to know that a candidate is concerned about how their performance drives the overall success of a company. Discussing your KPI’s can help show that you understand what you need to do to succeed. Second, hiring managers like to see candidates that take responsibility for their performance and are committed to meeting expectations. To meet expectations, you need to know what they are and your performance relative to those expectations. Knowing our KPI’s is a good way to show this to a hiring manager.

KPI’s also help you show how you will drive performance of a team you manage. It is very difficult to drive performance without setting clear expectations and measuring the results. KPI’s are an important element of this.

Examples of KPI’s

Each industry has different challenges and different KPI’s. Below are examples from a manufacturing.

  • Scrap dollars per labor hour

  • Parts produced per labor hour

  • Rework hours per labor hour

  • Production hours to setup hours

  • Maintenance hours per shift

  • Equipment downtime

  • Order backlog

  • Percentage of orders shipped on-time

  • Line fill of orders shipped

This is just a sampling of a few KPI’s. A company may have dozens of metrics that are significant.

Writing About KPI’s

On your resume, you should write about specific KPI’s that are significant to the business. Start by discussing your actions and then provide the change in the KPI. For example, a production manager may have reduced setup times by standardizing tooling:

Reduced Setup Times: Standardized tooling in punch presses by utilizing a consistent mounting configuration. This change reduced setup times from an average to two hours to under 30 minutes. Setup hours per labor hour were reduced by 60% in the punch press workcenter.

This bullet provides a clear action completed by the job seeker. The results of the action are also clear. The job seeker reinforces the results by showing the effect on a KPI. This example provides one additional element that benefits the presentation. It is written with the title “Reduced Setup Times.” This title makes it very easy to scan the resume and see what is important, while reinforcing the results achieved by the job seeker.

If your resume does not detail any KPI’s, review your performance, identify the KPI’s that are important and show how you affected those KPI’s.

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Resume Tip #7

Resume Tip: Include awards and other recognition of your accomplishments on your resume.

Resume Tip:  Include awards and other recognition of your accomplishments on your resume.

With your accomplishments, include recognition of these accomplishments.  This could entail a major corporate award, but often the recognition is less formal.  Some companies provide bonuses for successful projects, recognition lunches or dinners after a significant contribution or a public congratulatory statement.  Consider including these in your resume as they can help validate the significance of an accomplishment.

Resume Filename Best Practices

The filename of a resume is an often-overlooked detail by many job seekers. Palladian surveyed a selection of resumes and identified best practices and common mistakes for naming the resume file. In the study, Palladian indentified four elements that routinely appear in the filenames of resume. The most common was an indication of the job seeker’s name. Also common were the word “resume,” a version number of the resume and the date the resume was written.

The filename of a resume is an often-overlooked detail by many job seekers. Palladian surveyed a selection of resumes and identified best practices and common mistakes for naming the resume file.

In the study, Palladian identified four elements that routinely appear in the filenames of resume.  The most common was an indication of the job seeker’s name.  Also common were the word “resume,” a version number of the resume and the date the resume was written.

Job Seeker’s Name

Ninety-two percent of resumes had some indication of the candidate’s name, but only fifty-eight percent contained both the first and last name. Nine percent of the resumes had no reference to the candidate, with files names like “resume,” “myresume” and “resume2009.”  The remainder had some reference to the candidate, a first name, a last name or initials, but did not contain both the first and last name.

Other Information

A large percentage of resume filenames contained information of no value to a hiring manager.  Two common items were the date the resume was written and the version number of the resume.  There were job seekers that put information in the filename that had no meaning.  In some cases, it looked like the job seeker used the resume of someone else as a template, since the filename contained a different person’s name.  Others had random words that seemed to have no meaning.

File Format

By far, the most common file format was the Microsoft Word 2003 – a .doc file.  There were also pdf, rtf, wps and docx file formats, along with one format that could not be identified.

Best Practices

  • Use your first and last name in the file name.
  • Include the word “resume”
  • Include a keyword phrase (1 to 3 words summarizing your job or industry)
  • Separate words with hyphens
  • Submit your resume in a Microsoft Word 2003 format (.doc)

Structure of a good resume filename:  FirstName-LastName-Resume-KeywordPhrase.doc

Example:  John-Doe-Resume-Logistics-Manager.doc

 

Resume Tip #1

Resume writing tip for job seekers. Palladian provides expert resume writing services to help job seekers stand out and land interviews.

Resume Tip: Your resume should be clear and easy to understand.

A good way to simplify your message is to include a positioning statement that clearly shows who you are and what you offer in one or two short sentences.  This statement needs to be focused and tailored to the job to be most effective.