MBA Applications: Getting Your Resume Right

MBA applicants must understand that they are considering to pursue a program that is more experiential in nature than a specialized Master’s Degree program. While indicating the knack for conducting research and comparative studies, being brief and crisp in your communication is essential, and a good MBA resume must display those traits.

1. The resume under all circumstances must close within one page. One understands that B-schools have a large intake of engineers, but that is no excuse to go beyond. One need not mention technical skills or highly technical projects that will have no relevance to the intended program. That itself will shorten the length.  

2. Choose your action words or verbs carefully. Aspects of leadership (one can even replace that with initiative if there were no opportunities provided to display leadership at work), team work, business management, finance, accounting, risk taking and accomplishments must be highlighted using appropriate power-packed action words.

Some examples for reference are enlisted below:

• Management Skills: Administered, Analyzed, Chaired, Coordinated, Delegated, Organized, Planned
• Communication Skills: Addressed, Authored, Collaborated, Formulated, Influenced, Negotiated
• Research Skills: Critiqued, Evaluated, Inspected, Investigated, Organized, Remodelled, Solved
• Financial Skills: Allocated, Appraised, Audited, Budgeted, Computed, Projected, Researched
• Creative Skills: Conceptualized, Customized, Designed, Developed, Revised, Set up, Validated
• Helping Skills: Assisted, Counseled, Facilitated, Guided, Motivated, Rehabilitated, Trained, Verified
• Stronger Verbs for Accomplishments: Achieved, Attained, Conceived, Discovered, Expanded, Founded, Innovated, Launched, Pioneered, Upgraded

3.The experiences cited through the resume should help you look progressive in nature. Your choice of verbs should impressively reflect personal and professional contributions or development. Showing numbers depicting contributions to business growth helps. 

4. As most aspirants would have significant work experience, one may avoid displaying school education in the academics section, and with 2-3 years experience or more, you may even avoid detailing internship experiences.

5. Ensure that you write crisp, short appositives than full sentences. These shouldn’t look like paragraphs.

6. Extra-curricular work and voluntary service are important aspects of an MBA aspirant’s resume. They help you look balanced and project your humane side too as a contributor rather than just defining your career aspirations as a profession-oriented person.

The resume is undoubtedly crucial for a first impression. Ensure to make the resume look visually appealing. Classify it into sub-categories such as Education, Experience, Projects, Research, Skills, Activities etc. Should there be an opportunity or requirement for a resume to extend to another page, the content should be balanced on both pages. It should be two pages in full and not 1 and 1/4th or 1 and ½. Pay close attention to alignment, dates, punctuation, spellings and fonts. The most widely acceptable font is Times New Roman. It is important to proofread or have another person do so before submitting the document.

Please find below 2 sample resumes to help you gain a better understanding of the aforementioned points.

Cornell Johnson, Class of 2019

UMichigan Ross, Class Of 2020