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Quantifying in Your Resume: Addressing the Less Obvious Factors
The importance of quantifying accomplishments for an effective resume is well understood by now. You don't say you achieved "strong sales," but you achieved "sales of $6M."

Yet people often view "quantifying" narrowly. First, not only accomplishments, but also other job factors, can and should be quantified. Second, "quantifying" something does not necessarily require a dollar sign. Some of the less obvious reasons and ways to quantify are discussed below.

• While it's essential to present accomplishments in your resume in order to demonstrate impact, your resume also serves to profile your overall work context. Quantifying seemingly neutral factors furthers that end. Contrast "member of product development team" with "member of 3-person product development team" or "member of 10-person product development team." The latter two, just by the insertion of a number, provide a richer view of your role and work context. Neither (3-person versus 10-person team) is more impressive than the other, but each offers its unique context for your work.
• Present a comparative perspective. Say you write "achieved $10M in sales." The reader will know it's a great accomplishment only if you present that figure comparatively, e.g., "compared to average sales per account executive of $5M" or "the first time any account executive exceeded $8M" or "over 6 months, instead of the average 10 months."
• Budgets are an often-overlooked factor that can add to the credibility of your resume. If you manage a department, project, or team budget, cite the relevant figures, e.g., "Managed team/department/project budget of $500K." It's that simple. If you do not have management responsibilities, you may handle some type of budget, e.g., "Accountable for individual travel budget of approximately $6K per year." While that last example won't make the reader say "Wow!" it does strengthen the view of you as a responsible, conscientious employee.
• Even people who are careful to quantify dollar amounts often use adjectives to describe efficiencies, such as "greatly reduced time-to-market" or "substantially improved customer service." Use a percentage instead. "Reduced time-to-market by approximately 12%."

These factors for quantification can greatly enhance the credibility and vividness of your resume - by at least 50%!

Cindy Tokumitsu
Senior Editor, Accepted.com
Member, Professional Association of Resume Writers

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Accepted.com Extends "It's a 10!"
Accepted.com is extending until April 30, 2004, the " It's a 10! " contest for MBA applicants who fill out an MBA Interview Feedback questionnaire after interviewing. It's painless: Provide feedback on your MBA admissions interview and you're enrolled. Every tenth questionnaire wins a $10 gift certificate at Accepted.com or Amazon.com, winner's choice. :-)

Thunderbird Receives Largest Business School Naming Gift in History
Thunderbird, the No. 1 school for international business as ranked by U.S. News & World Report and the Wall Street Journal, has announced it will receive a gift of $60 million from alumnus Samuel S. Garvin '88 and his wife Rita to expand its renowned international management programs. In honor of the gift, the school will be renamed Thunderbird, The Garvin School of International Management. The gift is the largest naming gift ever received by a business school, and it will be officially presented in early April.

According to Thunderbird president Roy A. Herberger Jr., "Thunderbird has a history of education that is thoroughly international. This gift will support our ability to continuously improve operations on four continents while furthering our investments in a world-class faculty. The Garvins' gift also focuses on the importance of attracting outstanding students through scholarships and a curriculum designed to consistently meet the demands of a global economy. This wonderful act of generosity fuels our commitment to the values that have made Thunderbird the top-ranked international management program in the world."

Carnegie Mellon School of Business Announces Name Change
The School of Business at Carnegie Mellon has received a $55 million gift from David A. Tepper (MBA 1982). This gift represents the largest financial gift in the 104-year history of Carnegie Mellon University.
In recognition of this transformational gift, the school will be named the David A. Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon.

In conjunction with the naming announcement, the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon also shared details regarding four key areas in which it plans immediate investment: intellectual capital, academic innovation, enhanced student experience, and global visibility. Nearly doubling the school's current endowment, the recent gift competitively positions the school with other top-ranked programs.

Goldman, Deutsche Boost Recruiting at Wharton, Columbia
Bloomberg.com reports that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. are among the Wall Street firms that have increased hiring at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, Columbia Business School, and other top MBA programs for the first time in three years.

Students in the first year of two-year MBA degree programs are in the midst of the recruiting season for paid internships, which often lead to full-time positions upon graduation. With securities firms seeking to bolster their ranks after three years in which they shed 37,000 jobs in New York City alone, university officials said there is a surge in employment offers. Even those students who didn't land permanent spots through internships last summer are finding that opportunities exist as they approach graduation in May.

The recruiting and hiring boost follows Wall Street's third-best year ever in 2003, with profits doubling to $15 billion compared to 2002, according to the Securities Industry Association. A 26% rally in the S&P 500 Index and a 50% leap in the NASDAQ Composite Index helped spur financial activity, including trading and mergers.

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The Number of Foreign Applicants Dives Since Last Year
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that, according to a survey conducted this month by five higher-education associations, the number of foreign graduate students applying to study in the United States has declined sharply since last year. A second survey, conducted only by the Council of Graduate Schools, confirms that more than 90% of American colleges and universities saw a drop in foreign students, while there was a 32% overall decrease in the number of applications.

The results show that the United States "is a less desirable location for the world's best," said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for government and public affairs at the American Council on Education, one of the five associations that conducted the first survey. The other groups were the Association of American Universities, the Council of Graduate Schools, Nafsa: Association of International Educators, and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.

The associations that carried out the surveys said the results suggest that foreign students view the United States as unwelcoming, largely because of the difficulty they face in securing visas.

In issuing the surveys to over 530 colleges, the five higher-education associations urged Congress to change the visa-processing system so that it would not only deny visas to "those who would do harm," but also welcome "legitimate visitors." Such a system, the groups said, must include giving the necessary federal funds to agencies in charge of visa policy, providing expeditious service to applicants who present no special risk and creating a more predictable visa process.

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Pearson Firm Again Chosen over ETS
The College Board has announced that Pearson NCS, a for-profit education company, will grade the new essay portion of the SAT, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education. The decision marks the first time in more than 50 years that a company other than the Educational Testing Service (ETS) will grade any portion of the test. ETS will continue to tabulate the scores for the rest of the revised SAT, which will be introduced next year.

Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, said the organization had awarded the contract to Pearson because that company offered a better product at a lower cost than ETS. He added that it was too early to tell how much of the increased cost of grading the essays would be passed on to the three million students who take the SAT each year.

ETS has dealt with a series of setbacks to its core business over the past few years. In addition to failing to win the contract for the SAT writing test, it will no longer administer the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) after next year. In December, the organization that oversees the business-school entrance examination awarded the GMAT contract to ACT Inc. and Pearson VUE.

Low-Income Students See Their Fortunes Improve at Harvard
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Harvard University's president, Lawrence H. Summers, announced that parents in families who earn less than $40,000 a year would no longer be asked to pay anything toward their children's education. The change is geared to encourage low- and moderate-income students to attend Harvard.

"Increasing disparity based on parental position has never been anyone's definition of the American dream," Summers said. "Only by assuring access to everyone can we maximize the quality of our nation's college graduates," he added. Indeed, many of the nation's brightest students never consider applying to elite institutions like Harvard because they consider them out of reach.

Under Harvard's new plan, families earning less than $40,000 will no longer make the approximately $2,300 contribution that they do now. Families earning between $40,000 and $60,000 will pay an average of $1,250 less than they currently do. About 1,000 of Harvard's 6,600 undergraduates are expected to benefit, said Lucie McNeil, a university spokeswoman. The university estimates that the program will cost Harvard about $2 million more in financial aid in the academic year starting in the fall.

Still, the new plan does not mean that tuition and other costs will be entirely covered by other sources. Students will still be asked to pay some amount through scholarships, work-study, and summer jobs, as they have in the past. Harvard's tuition this year is $26,066. The total cost of attending, including room and board, is $37,928.

USC Spends Big to Boost a Weak Academic Link
The Los Angeles Times reports that at a time when many other universities are hamstrung by budget cutbacks and worried about raiding of their faculty, USC is in the midst of an ambitious hiring campaign. The Los Angeles campus is flush with money from a record-setting $2.85-billion fundraising campaign concluded a year ago, and it is using $100 million of that to snag high-profile scholars.

The hiring benefits the campus' largest division, the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. USC leaders and others in higher education have considered it a weak link, compared with the campus' professional schools such as engineering and law, and they hope the recruits will lift the college's stature. Joseph Aoun, dean of the USC College and architect of the hiring initiative, said that about half of the 100 hires anticipated in the initiative had already occurred.

USC administrators hope that the new professors also will enable the university to attract stronger undergraduates. The school says the average SAT scores of its incoming freshmen have climbed to 1341 this year, up from 1095 a decade ago. Overall, USC is rated the 30th-best research university in the nation in the most recent U.S. News & World Report rankings, up from 42nd a decade ago.

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