The 5 categories
1. People
- Team size you led, mentored, or onboarded.
- Users your product served.
- Stakeholders you coordinated across.
2. Time
- Time saved (per week, per release, per ticket).
- Time-to-market reduced.
- Onboarding time for new hires.
3. Volume
- Requests/day, transactions/month, GB processed.
- Tickets closed, deals closed, content shipped.
- Lines of code, PRs reviewed, bugs fixed.
4. Money
- Revenue (₹), cost saved, budget owned.
- Even rough estimates — "approximately" is fine.
5. Frequency
- Weekly cadence you established.
- Monthly reports you owned.
- Quarterly reviews you presented.
When you really don't have numbers
Use comparatives: "the most-used internal tool in the analytics team", "the first automated test suite in the org". Comparatives are quantified by implication.
The "before vs after" pattern
Reduced average API response time from 800ms to 120ms. Cut release cycle from 2 weeks to 2 days. Lifted Day-30 retention from 14% to 22%.
This is the single most-credible bullet pattern in any resume.