A key piece of the MBA application is a resume. It should showcase the breadth of your experiences and accomplishments. But remember, it should not merely communicate what you did in each role and extracurricular endeavor; each entry should explore WHY what you did and accomplished was so important to you and/or your team and/or the organization as a whole. What results did you achieve? What impact did you have? What did you learn?
MBA resumes should include the following components and should be no longer than one page:
Education. List all degrees and include a bulleted list in the Education section of internships and extracurricular involvements you participated in while in college.
Work Experience. Using results-oriented bullets, show your progression in responsibility throughout your career. Elaborate on the impact you’ve had and/or lessons you’ve learned. Note also any awards and/or honors and/or significant recognition that you have received.
Additional Information. This section can include significant extracurricular and charitable involvements you’ve participated in, languages you speak, as well as noteworthy skills, certifications, and memberships.
Keep the following tips in mind as you craft your resume:
Focus on results. We can’t emphasize this enough. Make use of active verbs to showcase your contributions. And, where possible, provide hard numbers that exhibit the results you’ve achieved and the impact you’ve made.
Keep it relevant. Your resume should only include experiences from the start of college onward, and should showcase your abilities in innovation, leadership, and teamwork.
Review the Guidance. Some MBA programs instruct you to “submit a resume,” while others such as MIT Sloan or UPenn Wharton, provide specifications for your submission. Review the school’s admissions page to confirm any instruction on page limits, font, and format.
If the school does not provide formatting guidance, you should keep it simple. Opt for left-justified text in an easy-to-read font—we prefer Garamond—sized between 10 and 12. Additionally, while it may be customary in some cultures to add a headshot to the resume, this is not recommended for U.S.-based MBA programs.
Use proper grammar. Even the best writers can get worked up about creating resume text. Don’t overthink it. Use proper punctuation and the appropriate tense (present for current activities, past for past activities). Read each line aloud and make sure that it flows smoothly. Do not lean on corporate jargon, rather you will want to ensure that you explain what you did and your results in a way that a fellow MBA classmate in a different field would understand.