Adding Personality to your Application

Question

Getting started with your application? Here is a post to help you get that one key ingredient into your application – a personality. Ever wondered what the fundamental difference is between your resume and your business school application? Other than the fact that your application is a lot more detailed, it is also expected to demonstrate your personality.

Most of us at the time of starting the application pick our resume and begin detailing it out. That is not a wrong approach, per se, but that alone is not sufficient. For your target school the purpose of your application is not only to understand your work profile and achievements but also to know you as a person. This is important to assess the overall value that you bring to your candidacy. In a number of cases, the personality, directly or indirectly, ends up as the defining factor to choose among otherwise similar looking profiles.

There is another way to look at it. The decision to call you for an interview, or not, is made without meeting you in person. You have to get your evaluator to ‘like’ you to help her make a strong case for your candidacy. In such a scenario, it becomes even more important to effectively demonstrate your personality in your application, to get your reviewer to ‘like’ you – beyond just your credentials.

Let us discuss some effective ways of adding personality in your essays:
• Tell your story: Make use of your essays to tell a captivating story, without losing the context. Let there be clear themes to your essays. Move from one point to other in a seamless manner to keep the reader (evaluator) captivated. Do not reduce the essays to a bunch of bullet points. In essence, the reader should be able to understand the central theme of your answer. This will stick with her when she ultimately evaluates you.
• Add Humor: Wherever possible, add humor to your essays. Obviously, it has to be in good taste and in context. A person with a good sense of humor is very likely to be a confident person who can handle pressure situations. These are very important traits that a school wants in their candidates.
• Don’t shy away from adding trivia: So, if you like to cook and serve – please go ahead and mention it in your essays. While the admission team will not select you for your cooking skills but they surely add few points to your social skills. So, it always helps to share limited amount of such trivia, but not at the cost of important information.

In conclusion, the evaluator will make an impression of your personality in the application and that will influence her decision. Inject ‘your’ personality into your application, and capture those additional points. All the best!

To read this and other posts please check my blog on https://anshulgupta.net/category/blog/

Anshul Gupta

highwyre237 · Answer

eh... I'd be careful. If humor doesnt flow easily for you... I wouldnt force it. I can tell you, I put plenty of personality into my essays, and even a bit of humor into those that left room for it (ie Fuqua's 25 random things)... but dont force it. There's nothing worse than a person trying to be funny when they arent... I would have one or two people read those portions of your essays more critically to ensure it doesn't sound forced.

A bit of personality is great, forced humor is not, and it can be a very fine line.

gmat0806 · Answer

Can I mention achievements from school and college level?

AskAnshul · Answer

I agree 100%

It is important to add 'your' personality. And that is not only true with the humor part but with other sections as well. If it is forced, it will show. And getting it reviewed is always a good practice. But you definitely should put the personality in the application.

pavan2185 · Answer

Many people say, I should sell my dream to convince adcoms. What if I don't have one? What if I want to do MBA for mere career advancement in terms of Profile, Pay or better choice of Jobs? How to deal with this?

AskAnshul · Answer

Pavan, lets me first state the facts straight. The adcom will evaluate you on clarity of your short and long term goals. Although it is expected that some candidates will like to keep their options open (esp. those with low work ex.), it is still advisable to state clear goals. Not stating specific goals is not wrong, per se, but will only lead you to lose precious points. So, here is my advice for you: Think hard... I am sure you have some idea on what you would like to do. Build your dream. But don't forget to do a thorough research around it. You don't want it to look like a 'just conceived' dream!

Hope it was useful. If you would like to discuss this in detail, feel free to reach out.

SGanguly · Answer

Dear Pavan,

I completely agree with Anshul. However, let me tell you that having a dream does not necessarily mean that you should aspire to bring about a revolution in the society or land on the moon. It is perfectly okay to want to expand the scope of your work or get into a better position after completing your studies. The idea here is - as Anshul has already pointed out - to be very 'specific'. In other words, show the ad com that you are focused, you know where you want to go and you are sure that this education is the stepping stone to reach there. Think about your dream jobs, the designations you want to work at, the organisations you want to work with. The ideal thing would be to segregate the goals into immediate post-degree goals, short-term goals (5-7 years) and long-term goals/career vision (10-15 years). Research on the kinds of profiles you will be able to take up after completing your studies and exactly what kind of work you would like to do. What would be your contribution to the organisation or industry you aspire to join? Your goals at each phase should emerge out of the previous phase - that is, there should be a logical progression from one phase to the other.

It is critically important that you develop a clear idea of your goals before you begin your application process. Without specific goals (especially the immediate and short-term ones), you may not be able to convince the ad com that you really need this degree and would make the best use of it in the future.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards,

Sinchita Ganguly
Admissions Advisor
Manya - The Princeton Review

pavan2185 · Answer

Thanks Anshul and Sinchita, you have given me a direction in which I should shape up my Dream

MBAbot · Answer

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