How to prepare an MBA resume? | All you must know...

First impressions matter, and with good reason. In particular, they are of importance during the MBA admissions process. For an admissions committee, the first impression of a candidate that they get comes through his or her MBA resume. Accordingly, you must be aware of the sheer necessity of crafting an MBA resume that leaves a strong impression of your merit. If you are unsure of what exactly goes into the making of an excellent MBA resume, this article will help. Herein, we discuss the intricacies of a good MBA resume while highlighting how its drafting process differs from that a professional resume’s.

Importance of Good Arrangement of Facts
Let’s begin by understanding what a good MBA resume outline looks like. The final resume that you submit for consideration should exceed a page’s length only if you have worked for more than eight years, as the point of a resume is to provide a succinct overview of your profile and not a detailed elaboration of every small achievement. Education, work history, and extracurriculars must form the three main divisions of your resume; you can phrase these headings as you please but the content must be framed keeping in mind these three primary sections. The other divisions that you can include, if relevant, are community engagements, internships, and leadership experience. A further important facet of crafting an appropriate MBA resume is deciding on the kind of space each division should occupy. Around three-fifths of the entire MBA resume must be dedicated to your work history, while a fourth must be used for extracurriculars and the remaining space can be used to lay out your education. The order of information for each division must be such that the most recent inputs must come first, the next most recent thereafter, and so forth and so on.

Importance of Easy Readability
Ideally, the language used in your MBA resume must be as simple as possible while preserving the meaning you want to convey. Technical language and words specific to your professional domain are best avoided, as are short forms that are not easily recognizable, to refrain from hampering the admissions committee members in any way. Try not to use long passages or elaborate sentences at any point in your essays and use brief pointers or bullets instead. Make sure to provide a summary of what your employer does if your work history is with a not-immediately recognizable enterprise. If your content is puzzling in any fashion, it is likely to be given little attention by the admissions committee members, who go through thousands of such MBA resumes in the course of their duties.

Importance of Highlighting Major Achievements
Your MBA resume is meant to put forward your best possible case; as mentioned previously, it is what creates the first impression of the candidate’s true potential. Therefore, to ensure that the MBA resume creates the best case forward, it must be framed in a manner that your tallest achievements stand out. To this end, be sure to incorporate all the recognitions, prizes, advancements, and significant professional commitments of your career in your MBA resume. Be aware that leadership is a touchstone that all MBA admissions committees actively look for, and highlight your leadership achievements appropriately. When bringing out your leadership deployments, focus on providing as much detail as possible, including the length of your leadership role, how many resources you led, etc. Importantly, remember to omit minor achievements from your MBA resume. At all times, keep in mind that the MBA resume is meant to present your best possible case, and that including smaller accomplishments therein might give the impression that you have not done much of note or that your approach is not appropriately mature.

Importance of Quantifying: Figures are Your Friend
When working on your MBA resume, make sure to provide as many figures as you can, wherever they are applicable. The idea here is that providing figures will help increase the impressiveness of your achievements by showcasing their concrete effects. Think along the lines of revenue generated by your actions, efficiency improvements enabled by your work, and other ways in which you have improved your employer's prospects in a quantifiable way. The impact of a number far exceeds that of several sentences, no matter how well-framed.

Importance of Grammatical Perfection
Your MBA resume must be flawless when it comes to the grammar used. Make sure to eliminate any spelling errors, typos, and/or grammatical flaws from your MBA resume. When it comes to the use of full stops, have a uniform approach. Either proceed to end every sentence in your resume with a full stop or forego its use altogether. Keep in mind that submitting an MBA resume with any grammatical errors in it will make you seem to be an unworthy candidate. The purpose of an MBA resume is to provide, at a glance, an overview of your profile. If the meaning of your resume is compromised by incorrect grammar, the activity as a whole is rendered pointless.

Importance of Pristine Formatting
When putting together your MBA resume, pay special attention to how you format it. The neatness of your work in this direction is a reflection, to the admissions committee, of how methodical a candidate you promise to be. Even if the contents of your MBA resume are noteworthy, substandard formatting will take away from their effect. It is off-putting to admissions committees to have to peruse incorrectly formatted resumes. The particulars of formatting should be such that section headings are left-aligned and any dates noted are right-aligned. Avoid using bold or capital letters to the extent possible as these make it seem that you are shouting. The final visual layout of your MBA resume must be pleasing to the eye, and you can help this along by omitting garish colours and spacing your content evenly.

If you follow the preceding insights with care while putting together your MBA resume, you will be better placed to draft a document that presents you as a candidate of merit and to be a mature professional. Having an excellent MBA resume is also a good tactic to place the admissions committee in a more favorable state of mind as they evaluate the rest of your application materials. The end goal is to portray yourself as a candidate who has fully thought through his or her decision to pursue an MBA, and submitting a well-crafted MBA resume will help show you in the required light.

We hope this helps.
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