How to Put Direct and Indirect Reports (and Other Data) on Your Resume

Most often, resumes are made up of words, and when they are written in paragraph format, they are especially likely to be skimmed over.

The hiring manager will read fewer words on your resume the more words you include. Though it seems counterintuitive, this is the situation.

What then can you include on a resume to catch the eye of hiring managers, HR personnel, and recruiters? Numbers.

To draw the hiring manager’s attention, you should strategically use numbers. There are many different kinds of numbers that you can use.

Direct reports are one form of statistic you can list on your CV. On your resume, you can also list indirect reports—people you’ve worked with on projects, trained, etc.

I’m going to show you how to add a variety of information and accomplishments to your resume in order to make it stand out and land you more interviews in this article.

Listing Direct and Indirect Reports on Your Resume

Create a bullet for each previous role where you led people that explicitly mentions your direct and/or indirect reports because hiring managers adore metrics leadership.

Here are a few instances of direct reports included on a resume:

• Managed calendars, performance evaluations, and daily responsibilities for a team of five software developers.
• 200 daily customer service queries were handled by a team of 9 customer service representatives that I hired and oversaw.
• Seven quality assurance Specialists and Senior Specialists are under the direction of a director who is also in charge of hiring, training, performance evaluations, and project management.

Examples of indirect reports to list on a resume include:

• I oversaw the lead generation processes for the company with a cross-functional team of nine employees, which led to a 122 percent growth in sales year over year in the fiscal year 2019
• In charge of project oversight and strategy, task delegation, and final deliverables for teams of 4-6 individuals working on client projects.

A resume example for both direct and indirect reports

• 5 direct reports and up to 15 indirect employees, depending on the projects at hand.

You’ll see that some of these resume-writing examples for reports also include other achievements, measurements, figures, and statistics. It’s best to list as much of this as possible on your resume.

Visit this link to read the complete essay on creating strong resume bullets.

Other Types of Data and Metrics to Put on Your Resume 

What if you didn’t lead anyone, though? That’s okay; you may still include a LOT of information and figures in your resume to stand out and attract employers’ attention.

Include information on any targets, quotas, or departmental averages that you reached or beat on your CV.

In order to compare your performance to the average, you should first state the objective or departmental average.

Many hiring managers will skim over a paragraph describing how you perform above average, but they will nearly always read carefully a brief bullet point with quantifiable performance figures.

You can include particular performance metrics for your firm or group on your CV. You could put credit on your CV if your group achieved its objectives! The same is true of corporate successes.

Two samples that will assist your resume to catch the hiring manager’s eye are provided below. These are sales representative examples. You can modify them based on your industry.

Example of individual performance:

• Performed three years in a row in the top 20 percent in the department (2009-2012)

Performance of a group or business example:

• Contributed 11% of the department’s overall 2012 earnings.

The next piece of data you can put in dollar figures.

You may locate particular figures to include on your resume in another fantastic approach by thinking in terms of dollar quantities.

Instead of utilizing a percentage like in the aforementioned example, you might state your donations in terms of monetary amounts.

Dollar amounts can be used in other contexts as well. Talking about the budget or income of the area you are in charge of inside the company is a terrific approach to demonstrate the size and significance of your role.

Here are two examples of dollar amounts you could list on a resume:

• Supervised and oversaw a 12-person chemistry lab with a $2,500,000 annual budget.
• A commercial group’s principal scientist/group leader was in charge of generating $200 million in revenue for the corporation in 2013.

Your direct reports are also highlighted in the first item above (12 lab staff). So that you can highlight headcounts, reports, and other accomplishments throughout your resume.

This kind of information, including both direct and indirect reports and other statistics, is much better to include on your resume than a wordy paragraph outlining your qualifications.

This kind of quantitative information will catch the recruiting manager’s eye and lead to more interviews.

Get Creative: There’s a Lot More Data You Can Put on Your Resume

Finding impressive metrics and numbers to list on your resume doesn’t require you to work in sales; all you need to do is get a little inventive.

Don’t be disheartened if after reading this you still haven’t thought of any metrics of your own, even though this list of suggestions is a fantastic place to start.

Consider the volume of work you produce. One location to look for inspiration is there. How many articles do you write per month if you work as a content marketer and writer, for instance? That is a measure.

How many people visit the websites for which you write each month? You might also include this as an excellent metric: “Write 10–12 articles per month for websites earning 12 million or more monthly visits.”

It doesn’t matter if you don’t work in sales or have any direct or indirect reports on your resume—that is an outstanding, accomplishment-filled sentence.

Before I wrap up, here is one last situation and illustration. Assume you work as an administrative assistant. How many individuals do you support? That is a quantity.

Or how many individuals report to one Executive if you help that Executive? Say “Executive Assistant to VP of HR, handling 10 HR staff” if there are ten.

Don’t assume that just because you’re not in sales or haven’t had anyone reporting directly to you yet that you can’t include metrics and stats on your resume. Instead, start coming up with ideas. There is plenty more that you can add.

Whether you are a Director-level candidate or an entry-level candidate, including statistics and numbers on your resume can help you land more interviews. Whether you have direct reports to list on your CV, indirect reports, or other sorts of data like the ones we looked at above, if you follow the procedures above, you’ll receive more interviews.