Most MBA applicants underestimate how much their resume matters. Admissions committees at top business schools spend very little time on each resume, often less than 30 seconds.
If your resume contains any of these common MBA resume mistakes, it can quickly move from “strong candidate” to “dinged.”
In this guide, we break down the 5 biggest MBA resume mistakes we see repeatedly when editing resumes for Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Booth, MIT Sloan, and other M7/T15 programs, along with clear strategies to correct them.
This is the #1 mistake I see while editing resumes of high-performing applicants. These are your typical Type A candidates who truly have achievements in the top 1 or top 5%, but they also have experiences as individual contributors that are not as significant. But it had a huge impact on the learning curve and their growth as a specialist.
I see 3 insecurities that are driving the exaggeration.
Essays build on the resume.
Think of the resume as the Chapters of your story and the essays as the narrative.
In these 10 guidelines while editing the MBA Application Resume, we cover:
In this MBA resume tip, I will share two approaches to position your resume into a traditional profile or a profile with leadership and entrepreneurial experience.
I want to start with an insight that not all schools want an entrepreneurial or a profile with diverse leadership experiences. Although if you have had such experiences, it is important to highlight them. Many top 10 schools want to see how you have progressed in a company or a function.
My uncle shared a story about a watchman who was overseeing a property, and there was a huge plumbing issue. In an hour, the apartments started flooding. In another hour, the hallways began flooding. Finally, when the Watchman reached out to the maintenance engineer, he asked, “Why didn’t you report the flooding earlier?” And the response was, “My job is to watch who enters and leaves the property and not to report on the maintenance inside the property.”
MBA Resume can be formatted into two broad styles – project-level formatting and strategic formatting. Before you make any drastic changes, you must understand that it is not just about the format that will give you attention. I remember having a conversation with a person running an accounting firm. And he was impressed with a 1-page resume format with two columns - work achievements neatly organized on the left and extra-curricular and volunteering on the right.
In today’s MBA Resume tips, I will share a common challenge I had while explaining Metrics Overload to Finance clients.
I have a question from a reader who asks, “Should I include my failures in MBA Resume.”
What should my MBA application resume look like? With the launch of the 2017-2018 MBA admissions season, this is a critical question applicants around the world will be asking themselves over the next 6-8 months. The good news is the answer is simple: your resume should be a forward-thinking advertisement that markets your strengths. Learn how to craft an effective MBA Application Resume.