Here’s How to Create a Compelling MBA Resume

Your MBA resume is a key component of your application. The resume helps summarize all the key details about your career, accomplishments, skills, and interests.

Stacy Blackman, founder of Stacy Blackman Consulting, recently offered a few tips on how to create a compelling MBA resume that maximizes the one-page real estate.

USE ACTION VERBS

When summarizing your job details, it’s important to start each bullet point with an action verb. Here are a few that Blackman recommends using:

• Managed
• Led
• Spearheaded
• Initiated
• Created
• Oversaw
• Ran
• Directed
• Supervised

“Ensure you use more than just the same action verb repeatedly or twice in the same bullet point,” Blackman says. “Also, consider upgrading your action words because some are more powerful. For example, ‘wrote report’ doesn’t sound as impressive as ‘developed report.’”

HIGHLIGHT RELEVANT ACTIVITIES

Applicants often make the mistake of listing all activities on their resume rather than focusing on the ones that are relevant to an MBA.

“We’re not looking for the laundry list – the laundry list that you might have to put in your actual application,” Sue Oldham, associate dean of MBA operations at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management, tells US News. “We’re looking for areas of interest and professional affiliations.”

Rather than putting a laundry list of activities on your resume, consider highlighting activities that have MBA relevance, such as international work.

“Exposure to another culture, especially professionally, is always a differentiator,” Blackman says. “Similarly, always mention study abroad programs. These should always be on your resume if you’re only a few years out of school. Relevant internships might also be worth including if they make sense with your career story overall, particularly if it’s relevant to what you want to do in the future.”

SHOW LEADERSHIP EXAMPLES

Leadership is a core component of the MBA experience. Thus, it’s important to highlight varied leadership experiences on your resume. Blackman says applicants should not be afraid to highlight leadership experiences from undergrad as well.

“Remember that the admissions committee looks to your undergraduate experience to gauge how involved you might be on campus outside of class in their MBA program,” Blackman says. “They’re looking for evidence of leadership from all phases of your life. And it’s especially great when a particular passion that you have now or might want to focus on in the future was evident in college as well.”

Sources: Stacy Blackman Consulting, US News

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