Overview

It’s not uncommon to hear MBA applicants spending hours revising their GMAT and subsequently perfecting every word of the essays. Though this attention is well warranted, these applicants woefully ignore an integral part of the Resume application process.

The resumes may just be the most important part of the application because not only is it the first thing the admission committee reviews when they receive your application (think the first impression)

But it is also the document they will constantly refer to while clarifying any doubts concerning your application essays and the overall profile.

And if that’s not enough, it’s the resumes that would largely dictate the kind of questions addressed to you during your final interviews.

Hence there is no question regarding the importance of this 1-page piece of document.

That said, creating an effective and powerful MBA resume is no easy job.

Though there are several articles on resume writing, most of them lack depth, and even fewer give a step by step process to create MBA Resumes, from scratch or otherwise.

Via this resource, we aim to create the definite go-to guide for creating an effective MBA resume. Hence, we have covered everything- from the format and font type to bullet structure and what data to include in the work experience and extracurriculars.

To start, we will be analyzing the anatomy of the ‘Perfect-Resume’, giving you tips along the way to make sure your resumes shine.

Now that you understand what an MBA Resume should and should not, containers go through each section step by step. This article will talk about the structure, highlighting your skills in a resume, and help build a new MBA resume for freshers.

1- Get a Clean and Effective Resume Format

One golden rule to follow while creating an MBA resume is to limit it to 1 page. Even schools such as Wharton and ESADE stand behind the one-page format rule. This will make it easy for the client or employee to learn every crucial detail they are looking for.

Neither do you have the experience to pull off a 2-page resume, nor does the admission committee have the patience to go through the needless data that may be populating the resume.

You want the resume to be clean, to the point, and easily scannable. In short, you want to make the job of the reader easy.

We believe the MBA resume should adhere to specific format rules which we have given below-

Format your resume in MS Word for Tables, Margins, and Alignment.
Have standardized margins 1 inch on top and bottom and 0.63 inches on the sides.
Check for the indents in each section.
Use gridlines and rulers to align.

Sounds too complicated?

You have got online tools such as myperfectresume.com, resumebuilder.org, resume-now.com to make your life easier.

Or

You can just download a free MBA resume sample from websites such as ResumeGenius and edit data in MS Word as per your needs.

2- STANDARDIZE THE FONT TYPE AND SIZE

What should the font size be?

The header should be sized between 20 and 22, the section head could range from 12 to 14, while the main body should be between 10 and 12. Use a standard font like Arial. This makes it easy for the client to go through the Resume easily.

You could also choose from Calibri, Garamond, Trebuchet MS, Georgia, and Helvetica. These fonts are legible, will give a fluid look and make your resume stand apart from other resumes.

A word of caution here, don’t try to mix and match fonts.

Stick to one throughout the resume.

Also, use bold, italics, etc., to organize your resume.

If you keep the text in your resume plain, it will look dry and not easy on the eyes.

For example, you can bold the name of the companies you have worked in, your college/ university name, your designation in the company, or highlight containers—understand the action plan varied life experiences listing a specific action word or important stat.

3- Provide Relevant Contact Details

Start your MBA resume with your name and basic contact details.

Just like the title of a book gives that particular book a unique identity, your name will give a unique identity to your resume. Therefore, your full name should be at the very top of your resume, making it convenient for the client to reach out and remember your name.

Mention your phone number along with the country code and an appropriate email address. Refrain from using inappropriate email like thecoolguy@gmail.com. It is best to stick to some variation of your name that seems official.

For example, if your name is John Doe, a good email username can be JohnD75@gmail.com.

In the header, the phone number and email address should be enough in most cases.

You can also include a link to your LinkedIn profile, but make sure it is updated and matches with the resume.

The rest of the details, such as the full address, can be mentioned in the Footer.

4- Skip the Objective Statement

In the 80’s it was a common practice to include objectives in your resume. However, times have changed now. Neither hiring managers nor the ad com is interested in reading your objective as it seems vague and mostly generic.

The admission committee is interested in your skills and capabilities, and the objective cannot state that.

Remember, every word in the resume counts. Therefore, listing an objective for MBA admissions will eat up a lot of space.

For example:

Let’s say that an ad com member sees this objective written on the MBA resume.

If you analyze this statement, it tells nothing suitable about the skill set or the candidate’s experience.

It sounds ambiguous at best.

Also, who does not want to work in such an environment? So there is no differentiation factor here.

Hence the lesson here is, skip the objective statement.

5- Optimize Your Bullet Points

Bullet points are the most effective way to express information, as they provide you with clean MBA Resume Templates.

Stick to 3-5 bullets per company.

The more recent or diverse the job experience, the more bullet points can support it.

Also, remember that readers like to skim through data; hence large blocks of text will not be read.

Keep your bullets to 1 – 2 lines (and, ideally, about half or more of those bullets should be one line).

They should be the same size and shape in each section and align from page to page.

Coming to the content of the bullets, here are some things you need to take care of

Quantifying Data Points

An important thing to remember is to quantify the work you have done so that the admission committee knows you have gone ahead and created something of value.

This way, you make sure that the ad com understands your work and the impact you create.

Here are some examples of Quantification

As you can see, the impact is visible.

Another way the impact of a bullet point can be exponentially increased is by using an Action word.

Action Words

So what are Action Words?

Action Words play an important role at the start of every bullet point. Think of skimming through a resume and coming across a word such as “Was, Did, and Made” instead of “Managed, Spearheaded and Created”.

The latter group of words sounds more interesting, stronger and can help you set the tone for your resume.

Similarly, while using an action word, sometimes the same job can be described differently, creating a completely different impression for the reviewer.

For example, consider these two statements:

My team upgraded the filing system.
Initiated and managed a complete overhaul of the company information management system… The second statement highlights the actual work done while making the point informative and adding weight to it.

Other examples of how you can use Action words: –

Hence make sure you start most of your points with action words.

Most companies have software which searches specifically for such action words and filter resumes based on it.

Hence you can realize the importance of the same.

Action word comes in varied forms, here are some mentioned below: –

Now that you have the basics of creating an MBA resume, time to look into the content.

6-Effectively Highlight Your Work Experience

This is the most important section of your MBA resume, so make sure you perfect it. This will make the client realize whether or not you are fit for the job.

For starters,

Include your designation, the company name, location and the period you worked. Try and also incorporate your educational accomplishments and how they landed you this job.

Try to put all of this in one single line, so you do not lose much space.

While brainstorming the content for the bullet points under each role, remember to talk about your responsibilities and write the company’s benefits because of your action plan, varied life experiences.

i) ” So What? ” Test

You can use the “So What?” test for it.

After writing a bullet point, analyze the content and ask yourself, ‘So what?’ to check whether the point highlights your capability.

Think about what difference it made?

How much faster? What was it before? How much money or time did it save?

So it can be converted into something like

Now you have highlighted that you are aware of project management skills, you strived to complete a project before time, and your efforts resulted in a market share of 70%.

ii) Transforming bullets from “Meh” to winning examples

We all have seemingly ordinary jobs and have taken up and completed a slew of nominal responsibilities.

But these seemingly regular tasks at your work need to be made more appropriate for an MBA application resume.

A good starting point could be adding precise facts or tasks accomplished to make those points come alive.

Now that you have the basics of creating an MBA resume, time to look into the content.

As you can see, adding facts and developing the point accordingly can make a huge difference.

iii) Translating Technical Jargon into MBA Language

Applicants for MBA schools are from all walks of life, from engineers to doctors. Hence it is essential to avoid technical jargon, which a person from a different background will have trouble understanding.

Hence take special care while talking about specific computer programs, programming languages, company acronyms and other terminology, which may cause a reader to become confused.

Check out these examples and observe how to make content more understandable to the MBA Admission Committee.

Make sure you put yourself in the reader's shoes and craft points in a manner that will be easy for him to understand.

Another thing to remember is to write this section in reverse chronological order. So your current job role comes first, followed by previous internships.

Lastly, make sure all job responsibilities apart from your current job are in the past tense.

Nothing puts forward a bad impression like bad grammar.

Note: If you are a fresher, your MBA resume may look bare. Introspect on internships done or any freelance jobs which you might have done, and the skills gained.

If you have done your final year projects with some external research/industrial entity – that can be mentioned hereunder Internship.

7- Showcase Your Educational Background

A very important part of your background is to showcase your education.

This section must include the institution name, the program name, and the date of graduation. Thus, providing a complete background of your educational history.

Also, it is not a good idea to mention anything further about your bachelor, especially if you have some work experience.

If you have done your masters or some other course, you can surely mention those as well.

Try adding some points that will serve as highlights, such as academic honours, club positions or any other achievement you have which might be relevant to your workspace.

If you have got a scholarship, then be sure to mention it right away. By doing this, you will provide them with all the education-related information a client or institute might be searching for.

8- Diversify with Extracurriculars

Schools are looking for more than just office drones or ivy league undergraduates.

They want people who have a holistic profile, add diversity to the school and their cohort, and have varied life experiences.

The Extracurricular Activities section can provide you with that Competitive Edge.

It spans organizational activities highlighting one’s leadership potential to social activities that highlight one’s empathetic nature or impact. It is very important to mention these activities as many companies and institutes search for candidates with special skills rather than just a great educational background.

Extracurriculars can be varied in nature. Hence, it may be good to use this space wisely and highlight aspects of your profile that differentiate you from the crowd and which the schools would appreciate.

Given below is a list of some extracurricular activities that can be a good fit in this section

Being a member of an academic club such as Poetry club, Engineering club, Psychology club etc.
Heading or being part of a team participating in a competition such as Robotics competition, Chemistry Olympiad, Clean Tech Competition etc.
They are engaging in activities related to art such as photography, dramatics, ceramics etc.
It is part of a cultural club such as the Russian Club, Pacific Islanders Club, South Asian Student Society etc.
Participating in community activities such as JUNTOS, Mountaineers club etc.
articipating in a government-related activity such as being a member/leader/active participant of a student government, student council, community government etc.
They are engaging in leadership related activities such as the National Beta club or Peer leadership group.
Involvement in writing, media-related activities such as working on a movie, writing for school/local newspaper etc.

Volunteering experience for a cause or an NGO.

Another fact to consider here is that just mentioning the activities is not enough. Anybody can participate in an NGO or do Yoga.

What matters is what impact you created in the same, so focus on that.

Also, you can emphasize leadership activities and how you have guided people towards a common goal.

If confused about what Extracurricular to focus on, you can think along the following lines:

Leadership: Highlighting the work done while managing a group of people. Also, add challenges faced, your vision for the entire team and results achieved.
Volunteering Initiative: The initiatives can show the balance you strike out by managing your studies/office and voluntary service together.
Training Others: Training, Mentoring, Teaching, like training your peers, mentoring new hires are all interconnected to leadership and worth mentioning in the resume.
Recruiting efforts: If you have made an effort in recruiting for your club, a company, etc., then this shows that leaders of your company respect you and trust you with the responsibility to get the best job done.

and so on…

If you still have space left, you may want to add some additional info.

List your non-trivial hobbies/interests/activities/leadership positions. Try to mention only slightly uncommon and interesting things.

Skills like proficiency in a language like French, Spanish or German etc., can be highlighted here.

Lastly, it is time for the checklist.

9- Perfect the Grammar!

Your resume is your introduction to the admission committee. It’s their first impression of you, and the last thing you want is to look careless or silly. But, on the other hand, resume grammar mistakes can completely sabotage your chances of getting into your dream school.

Some kinds of resume grammar mistakes are word choices, spelling errors, and punctuation errors.

To avoid such mistakes, make sure you have the resume proofread by another person.

Also, there are some other things you can look into to give your resume that extra edge.

i) Active Voice vs Passive Voice

Active voice describes a sentence where the subject performs the action stated by the verb.

In passive voice sentences, the subject is acted upon by the verb.

To craft a powerful resume, avoid passive language as much as possible. Instead, write the resume using an active voice.

Not only is it better grammar to use the active tense, but it also conveys a more direct, driven and in control feeling from the resume.

Passive Voice (seems as if the promotion just happened)

Active Voice (gives the candidate more credit for the activity)

ii) Make correct use of Tense

When talking about earlier Jobs and responsibilities held, always refer to them in the past tense.

When talking about your present job and responsibilities, use the present tense.

10- Proofread! Proofread! Proofread!

You don’t have to be a grammar nazi! But you cannot make silly grammar errors.

Use the read out loud function in MS Word to hear your resume and check for mistakes.

DO NOT rely on MS Word for spell check as it doesn’t have contextual spell check.

You can also use online tools such as Grammarly or Reverso.

If you have included a link to your LinkedIn or any other web page, check if they lead to the correct page when clicked.

Recheck to ensure that Fonts and sizes in your resume must be consistent among all sections.

Use a line break between sections to make the resume as skimmable as possible.

Lastly, make sure you get your resume proofread by a few friends/colleagues. You will be surprised how many mistakes one can miss even after several reruns through the resume.

Conclusion

Several people underestimate the effort that goes into crafting an effective resume.

As you may have just seen, a good MBA resume is not just a simple sheet of paper with your profile data scrawled across it, but it has to be engineered to perfection, considering several factors.

Make sure you follow the MBA Resume Format mentioned above, and we can assure you that your resume would be better than 80% of your competitors.

Below you can see the top 60 B-Schools that offer MBA to early-career graduates.

10 Steps Towards Creating the Perfect MBA Resume