According to today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, the unemployment rate dropped a staggering .3% to 7%. In the process 203,000 new jobs were created. This brings the total to 1,235,000 new jobs created over the last seven months!

Job creation was across the board in most sectors including:

1. Transportation and warehousing creating 31,000 new jobs in November.
2. Health care employment continuing to grow and adding 28,000 last month and 43,000 over the last two months
3. Manufacturing adding 27,000 new workers and 46,000 over the last two months.
4. Professional and business services continued to trend up by adding 35,000 and 56,000 over the last two months.
5. Retail trade employment grew by 22,000 and a staggering 66,000 over the last two months!
6. Leisure and hospitality employment, including food services and drinking establishments grew by 18,000 in November and an astounding 71,000 over the last two months!
7. Construction employment continued to trend up by adding 17,000 in November and averaging 15,000 per month over the last 12 months.

The only area continuing to decline was Federal Government Employment, which dropped 7,000 and has decreased 92,000 over the past 12 months.

Another positive BLS figure was the sum of unemployed (10.9 million or down 400,000) + underemployed (7.7 million or down over 300,000) those who are working involuntarily part-time when they wish to work full time + those who have just given up looking (2.1 million or down 200,000) and are not calculated by the BLS numbers = grand total of 20.7 million or a DECREASE OF 1,000,000 FROM LAST MONTH!

Therefore, it is time for candidates to engineer new resumes. To that end, one mantra I recommend is: numbers, numbers, numbers. This means to include as many quantitative accomplishments as possible. Instead of saying, “I was part of a team to implement a new MRP system” one should quantify that. For example, “as a result of my 34 man-hours managing a team of 7 IT professionals, software engineers and design engineers which resulted in our new MRP system being engineered 30% ahead of schedule and saving our company $4.5 million.”

One should also include such quantitative accomplishments as patents, awards and any ways you have made or saved money for your employer. This will be a lot easier to quantify if you are an engineer, scientist or technical professional, but everyone can accomplish this task with some planning and calculations. Remember as a rule of thumb for every dollar you are paid in your job, your company will earn $3 or more for your efforts. To that end, an employer needs to feel that you will be generating profit from your work. That is why you should include as many “numbers” in your resume as possible.