{"id":3347,"date":"2010-06-03T02:18:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-03T10:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=3347"},"modified":"2013-03-19T20:20:21","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T03:20:21","slug":"demonstrating-professional-growth-in-a-flat-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/demonstrating-professional-growth-in-a-flat-organization\/","title":{"rendered":"Demonstrating Professional Growth in a Flat Organization"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/accepted.squarespace.com\/acceptedcom_blog\/2010\/3\/2\/mba-program-selection-assessing-your-profile.html#comment8549433\">recent response to my blog post on assessing your profile as prelude to selecting schools<\/a> posed an important question: if you work in a flat organization, how do you demonstrate advancement and growth?\u00a0 After all, your progress will be compared to that of other candidates who have regular promotions with clearly delineated expanded responsibilities.\u00a0 In a flat organization, you may hold the same title for five years.<\/p>\n<p>It is a point that your application must make clear.\u00a0 Here are some ways to do so:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In your resume bullet points, when you summarize accomplishments\/experiences, order them consecutively and put dates in parentheses before or after the point.\u00a0 This way, if you have four years with a particular title, you can show progress within that time.\u00a0 Also use details to highlight growth.\u00a0 If the dollar scope of your projects increases over time, quantify those points.\u00a0 Similarly, if you led three-member teams initially and now lead ten-member cross-functional teams, specify that growth.\u00a0 If you started doing something new, describe it in a bullet point with the date, e.g., \u201cIn 2008, became responsible for managing relationships with clients up to $500K.\u201d\u00a0 The key is to look at your experiences and accomplishments and ask, \u201cHow can I portray them to reveal my professional growth?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>There will be even more opportunities in your essays to show your growth within a flat organization.\u00a0 The most obvious is when you are asked (typically in a goals essay) to summarize your career progress.\u00a0 Whether or not you have this particular question, look for a place early on in the set of essays to add a sentence explicitly describing the situation, along the lines of, \u201cMy employer, ABC Corp., is a flat organization, with no management ladder between associate and senior management.\u00a0 Nevertheless, in my three years as TITLE, I have gone from ABC to XYZ.\u201d\u00a0 Provide examples, ideally one that demonstrates your progress relative to accomplished colleagues, e.g.,\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI am the only one among my 10 peers to work directly on-site with our overseas clients and to accompany senior managers on sales visits to China.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Ask your recommenders to address this issue directly, and explain why to them (don\u2019t just assume they\u2019ll understand why it matters).<\/li>\n<li>In the application form you will have to fill in information about your roles and positions.\u00a0 Apply the same principles noted above to these sections, to the extent possible.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I have one final suggestion.\u00a0 Don\u2019t assume a subtle read.\u00a0 Make the point more than once, but in different ways, to make sure it gets across.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Additional Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Navigating the MBA Maze, <span>an ecourse<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"https:\/\/blog.accepted.com\/acceptedcom_blog\/2010\/5\/25\/admissions-resume-what-to-include.html\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.accepted.com\/acceptedcom_blog\/2010\/5\/25\/admissions-resume-what-to-include.html\" target=\"_blank\">Admissions Resume: What to Include<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.accepted.com\/acceptedcom_blog\/2009\/4\/29\/admissions-wants-leadership-not-labels.html\">Admissions Wants Leadership not Labels<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: black\" lang=\"EN\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.accepted.com\/mba\/Choosingprograms.aspx\">Best MBA  Programs: A Guide to Choosing the One for You<\/a>, an ecourse.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: black\" lang=\"EN\">By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.accepted.com\/aboutus\/editors.aspx?editorid=3\">Cindy Tokumitsu<\/a>, co-author of The <a href=\"https:\/\/accepted.squarespace.com\/Users\/Linda%20Abraham\/AppData\/Local\/Users\/Linda%20Abraham\/AppData\/Local\/Users\/Linda%20Abraham\/AppData\/Local\/Microsoft\/Windows\/Temporary%20Internet%20Files\/Content.Outlook\/51OO5MWQ\/Where%20Should%20You%20Apply%20BLOG%201%20v2.doc\">Finance Professional\u2019s Guide to MBA Success<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/accepted.squarespace.com\/Users\/Linda%20Abraham\/AppData\/Local\/Users\/Linda%20Abraham\/AppData\/Local\/Users\/Linda%20Abraham\/AppData\/Local\/Microsoft\/Windows\/Temporary%20Internet%20Files\/Content.Outlook\/51OO5MWQ\/Where%20Should%20You%20Apply%20BLOG%201%20v2.doc\">The Consultants\u2019 Guide to MBA Admission<\/a>, T<\/span><\/em><em><span style=\"color: black\" lang=\"EN\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.accepted.com\/Ecommerce\/mba\/EMBAEssay.aspx%20\"><em>he EMBA Edge<\/em><\/a><em>,\u00a0and author of several articles and the free, email mini-course,<\/em><\/span><\/em><span style=\"color: black\" lang=\"EN\"><a title=\"https:\/\/www.accepted.com\/mba\/embaadmissionscourse.aspx\" href=\"https:\/\/www.accepted.com\/mba\/embaadmissionscourse.aspx\" target=\"_blank\"><em> \"Ace the EMBA.\"<\/em><\/a><em> Also author of the\u00a0 NEW online mini-course, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.accepted.com\/mba\/Choosingprograms.aspx\">Best MBA Programs: A Guide to Choosing the One for You<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent response to my blog post on assessing your profile as prelude to selecting schools posed an important question: if you work in a flat organization, how do you&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4,6],"tags":[60,39,523],"class_list":["post-3347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mba","category-career-reviews","category-current-events","tag-emba","tag-mba-admissions","tag-resume","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3347"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3349,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347\/revisions\/3349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}