How to Create an MBA Resume

MBA is one of the most popular post-graduate courses across the world.  People opt for an MBA degree to upskill and become more employable.  Given the benefits of an MBA, more people are inclined toward getting an MBA degree. The best thing about doing an MBA is choosing your specialization based on your areas of interest. 

Companies have now started to hire MBAs for all kinds of roles.  Also, people with an MBA degree are usually paid higher compared to the ones who don’t have an MBA degree.  Therefore, you need a strong MBA resume to showcase your employability and worth to potential b-schools.

Here’s how you can create a relevant MBA resume that attracts the attention of the top colleges across locations.

Components of an MBA Resume

Before you start creating your MBA resume, you should check some MBA resume examples.  The examples will give you direction, and you will be able to draft a resume that spells out your profile effectively. 

Keeping the industry standards in mind while drafting an MBA resume is essential.  Also, try to gain as many skills as possible before creating your resume.  If you do not have prior work experience, you must focus on other essential aspects of your profile, like academic credentials, extra-curricular activities, etc.  Try to convey how these achievements have built you as a person.

However, if you have prior work experience, you must try to showcase how MBA will help polish these skills.  You must include all the on-job achievements while creating an MBA resume.  While making your resume credible is important, the language and the flow of the resume are equally vital. 

Let’s decode the components you must include in your MBA resume and their effect on your candidature.

Career Objective

Your MBA resume must have a career objective at the beginning. Admission committees of B-Schools are interested in knowing the career path you want to take and your expectations from the course.

You can alter the career objective based on the college and specializations offered by the college. Keep the objectives as realistic as possible.

However, if you have a relevant work experience before your MBA, you can replace the career objective section with a profile summary. Make your MBA resume more impactful by adding a professional photograph.

Work Experience

You must include your work experience, if any, in your MBA resume.  There are different ways of showcasing your work experience on your resume.  You must check out a few MBA resume examples to get some direction. 

Add the job title, the company’s name, and the period of employment. After that, you can add a list of work responsibilities and achievements of that work experience. Try using the same job designations allotted to you by the company.

If you have multiple work experiences, list them in reverse chronological order.  The B-school must know about your work experience and its relevance.  However, you can include your internships in this section if you are a fresher.

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Projects

An MBA degree requires you to work on different sets of projects.  While some of these projects are taken up within the B-school itself, others are done in collaboration with some companies.  Projects showcase your ability to operate in a dynamic business environment.  Therefore, try to include the projects’ outcomes and learnings if you took any project before applying for MBA.

Education Details

While your application to a B-school is proof of your academic dedication, colleges are interested in understanding your academic consistency.  Therefore, add your educational qualifications along with your grade.  Add all your high school, graduation, and details of other vocational courses in this section.  You must also add the institution’s name and certificate granting authority in this section.

Skills

The skills are one of the most important elements of an MBA resume.  During your life, you adopt several industry-relevant skills.  The colleges are looking for people with the required soft skills that make them more employable and the technical skills to fulfill the job requirement that they will take up post the degree.

You can try to include some specific soft skills like leadership, effective communication, etc.  If you are applying for a people-centric MBA course, you must try to include relevant soft skills.

Technical skills are equally important for an MBA resume.  However, the technical skills you should add to your resume will depend on the specialization you want to take up.  For instance, if you’re interested in studying marketing courses, you can include technical skills like content marketing, e-mail marketing, etc.  However, if you’re applying to a finance specialization college, your skills include investment management, capital budgeting, etc.  These technical skills will make your candidature strong.

Achievements

The achievements section of your resume highlights the extra-curricular activities you have participated in before applying to MBA colleges.  Also, the clubs and the societies are a significant part of your B-school life. Therefore, if you have been a part of any of these clubs during your undergraduate education, including the details in the section would be a good idea.

In this section, you must also include the awards you received before applying to the MBA course.  The section helps you retain information that does not fit into any other bucket but is an important representation of your candidature. 

Personal Details

You must add the basic details about yourself, like your phone number, e-mail address, current location, date of birth, etc.  These details help the college in reaching out to you. 

Action Words

If you want your MBA resume to stand out from the crowd, try to use action words in your resume.  Most MBA resumes look similar.  Hence, the admission council might lose interest in shortlisting the resumes. 

You can add some powerful words to make your MBA resume stand out.  B-Schools love students who can take up responsibilities and deliver results.  Some power words that you can add to describe your work experiences and projects are:

• Conceptualized
• Devised
• Formulated
• Initiated
• Designed

Formatting Your MBA Resume

Once you have all the details, you must create a proper format for your MBA resume. Your MBA resume should be able to give a snapshot of your candidature in 30 seconds. 

Using the correct format is very important, as a resume is an information-heavy file.  Therefore, you must figure out what should stand out and what can act as a supporting statement.  Also, if your MBA resume is not professional enough, the admission committee will not spend their time glancing through it. 

Popular MBA Resume Formats

There are some commonly accepted MBA resume formats.  It would be best if you tried using any of these formats to create a good resume for your MBA application.  These types include:

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Reverse Chronological Format

This kind of MBA resume lists the latest work experiences first.  This is ideal for candidates who have had several work experiences before applying to an MBA course.  However, if you are a fresher, you can try other MBA resume formats that suit your profile.

Functional Resume Format

If you are someone with a plethora of skills, you should create a functional resume to showcase your skill sets.  This format is ideal for freshers applying to MBA courses.  Also, if you have a work experience in a different field than the MBA specialization you want, you can use this format.

Combination Resume Format

The combination format gives you the best of both worlds.  The format combines the elements of a reverse chronological resume and a functional resume.  This format is made for someone who has a rich work experience along with a solid skill set.

MBA Resume Layout

Once you choose a format for the resume, you should try to work on the layout of the same.  There are some factors that you must consider while implementing a professional layout:

• Margins: Ensure that you have at least an inch’s margin on all sides of your MBA resume.
• Font: The font you choose for your resume should look standard and professional.
• Font size: Stick to a font size of 11-12 for descriptive sections and font size of 14 to 16 for your headers.
• Line spacing: To avoid a cluttered resume, ensure that you have a space between two lines.  You can use a line spacing of 1.0 or 1.15 in your resume.
• Length: A professional or an MBA resume should not exceed a page.  If you are facing issues in putting everything together, use a pre-defined format and add relevant information.

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MBA Resume Sample

Here’s an MBA resume sample to help you create an excellent resume for your MBA applications:

Source: Novoresume

More about the course:

If you are interested in taking up a master’s course, you can apply for the Master of Science in Machine Learning and AI anchored by Liverpool John Moores University.  The course introduces you to the infinite use cases of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Some highlights of the course are:

• Learn more than 20 tools that are currently in high demand
• Work on more than 30 case studies and a capstone project
• Learn from some of the best industry exports
• Gain an alum status of IIT Bangalore and LJMU

Conclusion

Now that you know what should go in your MBA resume, you must bring all the aspects of your profile together and start creating your resume.  You can add all the information first and then spend time formatting it.

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Master of Business Administration (MBA) in association with Liverpool Business School