Business School Resume – Your Professional Narrative
For those of you preparing your applications for MBA programs, we are sure you have been studying hard for the GMAT (read our article on GMAT or GRE, if you are wondering which test to take) and working furiously on your essays (right??). But one thing you might not be thinking much about is your resume.
As top mba admission consultants, we find that most people we work with initially feel confident in their resumes — after all, it’s something they already have on hand, and it’s helped them secure their current job. But a business school resume is actually a little different from a professional resume. It’s important to know those differences and make sure you carve out some time to work on your MBA resume early in the application process.
Here are some of our tips for how you can make your resume business-school ready. You will find that thinking about your resume in terms of your MBA application will help you create your professional narrative and develop different stories, and inform your answer when asked in MBA interviews to “walk someone through your resume”!
Mind your language
Avoid industry-specific jargon! While you can assume that employers
in your field understand the job-specific language you might have on
your resume, an MBA admissions committee might not. You want to make
your resume clear and easy to understand for anyone who reads it, not
just someone who comes from your professional sector.
Numbers help your narrative
Whenever you can quantify your achievements in specific substantive
ways, do so! Include the number of people who work on your team, or
under your leadership. Talk about how much money you’ve saved your
company, or what a deal is worth in specific terms. Business schools
want to know about outcomes and measurable impact.
Context is key
While business schools value applicants from well-known companies
with international recognition and repute, they also promote diversity
and welcome applicants from different backgrounds who will bring
interesting perspectives that will enrich the program. As international
applicants there are many things on your resume that you can’t count on
being universally well known, so contextualise your work, your position
and your company for the reader. Be sure to provide regional or
cultural information when it’s appropriate.
Emphasise your soft skills
It’s very important that you highlight soft skills, such as
communication, leadership, team-work, problem solving or motivation, on
your resume. Contextualise how your communication abilities helped your
team, how you’ve led teams through a project or new product launch, ways
in which you’ve cultivated your interpersonal abilities. If the nature
of your work doesn’t allow you to highlight those abilities, you can
talk about these skills through your other interests and activities such
as participation in the Rotary Club, community service, sports
teams/championships, etc.
Keep it short and relevant
Be as concise as possible! Your resume should fit on one page, so be
specific, thorough and brief. There is NO exception to this one-page
rule.
Unlike many other parts of the business school application, such as the essays and the forms, the resume can be fairly straightforward, so edit it early, and have it ready to use. We promise, you will thank yourself later!
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