How to Quantify Achievements on Your Resume

Go through one bullet at a time and ask which of these applies. Most bullets do not need a percentage or a money figure. A count, a frequency or a before-and-after time is often the most honest number you have.

Each example below shows a kind of figure that job often has. The numbers are illustrations, not targets or typical results. Use the figures from your own work. The bullet points guide shows where the number goes in a bullet.

Ask these about any bullet that has no number.

You can estimate a number if you can show where it came from. Rebuild it from something you can point to: calendars and rotas, ticket or order history, sent emails, timesheets, or a task you can time again today. For example: "The report ran weekly and took me about half a day. After the automation it took ten minutes, so it saved about three and a half hours a week." You could explain that in an interview, so the number is safe to use.

Say that it is an estimate. Words such as "about", "around" or "roughly" are honest, and a round number suits an estimate better than an exact one. "Saved about 3 hours a week" is believable. "Saved 3.27 hours a week" claims a measurement you never made.

A figure chosen because it sounds good is a different matter. If an interviewer asks how you measured it, you will have no answer.

Some work cannot be measured, and some accomplishments do not need a number at all. Describe what made the work substantial instead:

For example: "Rewrote the onboarding documentation for a 40-person engineering team after two earlier versions were abandoned." It has no percentage and is still specific. The resume mistakes guide has ten more before-and-after bullets, and the guides page lists the guides for the rest of the resume.

Use only figures you are allowed to share. A percentage or a range can reveal as much as the exact amount. "Grew revenue 30%" lets anyone who knows last year's figure work out this year's, and a range can still narrow down what a client spends. If you are unsure whether a figure is public, check your employment contract or ask, and leave it out until you know.

When you cannot share the figure, describe the work with the details in the section above: scope, complexity, frequency, responsibility, or an outcome that is not confidential. "Rebuilt the month-end reconciliation for the largest client account, which then passed its external audit with no findings" shows the size of the work without a single figure.

The ATS checker counts how many of your bullets contain a number written in digits, including percentages, currency amounts and units of time. If fewer than 30% do, it reports a critical issue, and below 50% a warning. These cut-offs are the tool's rule of thumb, not an employer requirement. It counts any number, so "3 reports" or even "Python 3" counts the same as "cut costs 40%", and a number written as a word, such as "three", does not count. You decide whether a number means something.

The Bullet Improver checks one bullet at a time. It flags problems such as weak verbs, passive phrasing and filler words, and offers a reworded version. If the bullet has no number, it suggests up to three endings with blanks, such as ", reducing reporting time from __ hours to __ minutes" for a bullet about a report or dashboard. It never adds a number for you.

Inside the builder, the Achievement Quantifier does the same for your whole resume, starting with your longest bullets that have no number. Each suggestion comes with a filled-in example marked "e.g.". Those figures show the shape of the sentence, and they are not a guess at yours.