Top-ranked business schools require applicants to submit a strong, well-written resume to be considered as a competitive candidate for their program. While most people have experience writing a resume for a potential job, an MBA resume requires a little more finesse. Your MBA resume is the first impression you will have with the admissions committee, and you want to ensure you can highlight the benefits your background can bring.
Writing an MBA resume must capture your experiences, achievements, and knowledge transferrable to the program and post-MBA career. Many people are unclear about how to capture the professional details and experiences they've had over the years. This article and its accompanying webinar will guide you through how to write a successful MBA-ready resume that is uniquely yours and allows you to stand out.
What to Avoid Adding to Your MBA Resume
Before moving forward with what makes an MBA resume successful, you need to know what not to include. Here are a few things to avoid:
Demographics – While non-US business schools may require applicants to include demographic details in their resume, such details are frowned upon in US applications. Information such as age, marital status can be left out.
Creative or Unique Resume Styles – An MBA resume needs to be simple and clean. You should organize the structure and layout in a way that makes sense to the reader and provides clear and straightforward information.
Objectives – When submitting an MBA application, your objective is being accepted into the program; given that is a known, you want to leave out the objective from the resume. This leaves space for the resume to cover achievements and experiences relevant to showcasing professional success.
What Makes a Successful MBA Resume?
Your resume is a professional overview of your career progression. It includes any promotions and outlines your achievements and experiences over the years. A successful resume clearly captures your background irrespective of the reader's understanding of the sector (jargon free) and provides key details transferable to the future you hope to achieve by attending business school.
Admissions committees look for leadership potential and analytic aptitude in bullet points highlighting achievements. You want to showcase your experience through a unique lens and approaches to typical problems within your field. How you benefit your company or position by your strategic thinking and skills and what you can bring to the table is what will make you stand out.
The biggest struggle many MBA aspirants have with writing their resumes is confusing the job description with the achievements. Your job description will include one to five sentences about your overall role, including responsibilities and leadership functions. Your achievements are what you have accomplished within the role focusing primarily on projects. With achievements, you want to describe what you did, how you did it, and the outcome (impact) of your work.
The education section in the resume is essential and can be brief. You will want to include any degrees earned with major, honors, your GPA (if it’s above 3.5 on a 4.0 scale), and any educational achievements during your time at school.
Building your MBA resume requires you to fit all the essential details on one page. It should include robust employment history, achievements, education, and community engagement. Keep your MBA resume clear, straightforward, and clean to highlight your achievements and background that present you as a leader.
Please view the webinar in full for a comprehensive summary and contact us anytime with any questions or to receive a complimentary consultation.