Understand “The Numbers” in Your Job: Part 2

Numbers_Performance_August2011_web In part one of “The Numbers” series, we focused on how you become informed about the numbers that matter in your company. The next step in understanding the metrics that impact your career is evaluating your own performance and how it can be measured.

Let the Numbers Add to Your Job Search
When stating your abilities, whether it’s on your résumé or your LinkedIn profile, it’s best to focus on achievements and give qualifying information as often as possible. For your résumé, state how many boxes per hour you can build or how many new clients you brought into the company per month instead of just stating your skills. When you are pursuing a new job, understand that potential employers are comparing your skills against other candidates. Presenting your abilities in a way that demonstrates the value you would add to their team can help you stand out as the best candidate for the job. This type of information will also give you a good point to elaborate on during interviews.

It can also be helpful to measure your performance during a job search. When searching for a job, take a look at what your activity is yielding. Do you schedule one interview for every 10 applications or is it one interview per every 25 applications? Understanding what to expect can help motivate your job search activity.

Tracking Your Productivity 
In a current position, make sure your goals are measurable and that you understand how they are being tracked, who is tracking them, and how often your performance will be reviewed. When you are negotiating a raise or asking for help in managing your workload, you’ll need to be able to clearly demonstrate your job performance.

While taking the time to analyze your job performance can seem counter productive to getting work done, it is time well-invested.  By understanding the number of hours a project took, the number of phone calls it took to make a sale, or rate of return on an investment, you’ll be able to forecast what it will take to meet your goals and where resources should be allocated. Make sure you talk with your manager about areas of concern where your resource investment is not yielding the best results and what measurements are most important to your job.

Now that we’ve covered how to become informed about the metrics that matter and how to measure your own performance, next we’ll cover why tracking your job activity can result in a celebration.

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