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. Needless to say, this strategy to find the best candidate didn’t workout. In just 2 months, everyone on LinkedIn was using this format.
For MBA Admissions, it is a boring 1-page resume with no option to add columns or interesting formatting. It is all about your achievements.
Before you choose Project-level or Strategic Format, follow these 2 guidelines:
1) Total Projects Per Year
If you are in consulting or investing, the likelihood that you will be working in more than 3 projects a year is high. In such cases, you don’t have to worry about summing up all the achievements into a single entry and capturing 3-5 unique traits. You can choose projects, even mention the client (if disclosure agreements allow it) and ignore other projects where your engagement was less than 1 month or your contribution was more of a supporting role.
Even in such entries, you must focus on balancing metrics with the action you have taken and also capture the constraints under which the projects were delivered.
2) Number of Years
The Strategic MBA Resume format is a format where applicant’s role is the primary focus and not the projects. The idea behind the formatting is to clearly show that for a certain role, the applicant had excellent deliverables and also went beyond the responsibilities. This allows admissions team to clearly notice the applicant’s initiative, leadership, cross-functional engagements and extraversion, which is extremely important for the class experience in an MBA program. The format works for applicants with more than 4 years of experience.
