Get Your Resume Reviewed

Hi All,

Upload your resume as a word doc on google docs and post a link here. Share your doc with anshul.agrawal12@gmail.com.

Or

You can just email your resume to the above mentioned email and post here that you have emailed it to me. I will check that email only if I see a post here.

I hope this helps.

Anshul

Importance of Your Resume

When you think about the business school admission process, you mainly think about GMAT, essays and the admissions interview. Resume is often not given the top most priority. It is fair to say that the interview is the most important aspect of the admissions process, but your resume certainly comes next.

Schools want to see what you have done in the past. Have you progressed? or are you at the same job since graduation. Promotions matter a lot and add a lot to your profile. Many schools like UNC schedule interviews even before you submit your essays. They just ask for your resume and interview you. Other schools will give the interview-er your resume and a list of questions. So you can see that your resume is one of the most important pieces of the b-school application.

It is also important to choose the right resume format. Most top schools have a similar format, which really looks plain and simple. I personally dont like it that much, but thats what schools prefer and like to see. Just google mba resumes and you see many examples. Remember it should be very simple.

Make sure there are no spelling mistakes, the best way to do this is to have a friend who has not seen your resume before review it. I often missed small errors cuz I had looked at my resume way too many times.

I have been getting a lot of requests to review stuff, so in a day or two I will post another post with details on how to send me your stuff.

As always, questions and comments are welcome.

Anshul

Why you should spend a few extra hours analyzing the class profile

Class profile is something we all look at when deciding which school to apply to. When I was in that boat a year ago, I mainly looked at GMAT, average work experience and acceptance rate (if given). My thought process would be something like, well I have the GMAT they want, but my work experience is a little low, but they have a high acceptance rate. That's 2/3, plus they are a top 20 school, so here comes my application.

This thought process was not the best one. In fact it is not good at all. The reason for this is that it only takes into account half of the equation. The MBA consists of 2 parts, getting in (your admission) and getting out (your recruitment). I analyzed the first part and left the 2nd one untouched. And now, I am dealing with the consequences.

Here are the things u should look at - average age, professional background, placement locations (specific to state). Average age is important because if a school's average age is 29, and u are 25, u will have a hard time finding a job. Most employers will want more experience and all jobs posting will be aimed towards older people. So, you would be left behind because you dont have enough experience. Now if you were in school where the avg age was 25, all recruiters come there with a mindset to hire young people and all jobs will be aimed towards you. think abt it!

the same goes to professional background, if your school mainly has students who are business ppl, and u r an engineer, you wont find many jobs that match your profile. Whereas, if you were in a school that mainly had engineers, all jobs would fit your profile. Get my point?

Get started on your career choice early

We all write about our long term and short term goals in our admission essays. We work hard to convince admissions ppl in b-school interviews that this is exactly what we want and our entire life we have been working towards it. Finally, our hard work pays off and we get admitted into a good b school.

You would think that after putting in so much thought, one would be sure about his/her goals. It is amazing to see how many people are still not sure about what they want (including me) after getting in. I still remember that on our first day, the dean asked us, "How many people still want to do what they wrote in the essays?". Only a few hands were up.

There is nothing wrong with being undecided, but the sooner you know, the better it is. Here it why. Let us say you are confused between Finance and Consulting and you try to pursue both in the beginning. By doing so you will burn out very quickly, because the preparation for i banking and consulting is completely different. Your networking will be very different too. You will only have time to go for one career trek (a short trip to various companies where you meet alums), so you will have to choose. In the end, you will be left in the middle with average prep for both industries.

Now think about the other scenario, you know you want to be in marketing. You start preparing your resume and interview answers accordingly. You connect with the right companies and alums at those companies. So, by the time internship resume offs happen, you will be all set and ready with your story.

I switched my career choice from venture capitalism to private equity to consulting to marketing to the internet industry. Yea, it was BADDD!!!! I wish I had decided early on that I wanted to be in the internet industry, I would have a much better shot at my target companies.

Well, its too late for me, but you guys should get started on what you want to do right away.

Importance of Business School Culture

Most students just ignore the culture of the school. It is very important to see what the culture of a school is like. You can find out abt the culture by talking to alumni and current students. All schools will tell you that students and faculty are very friendly and great, and they are. However, there are differences. For example, students at X school will be competitive but at school Y will not be so much. So, if you are the type of person who is very competitive, go for school X. This is even more important if you are an International Student. I have seen that things can be very different for international students. So I recommend that you talk to students from your country and get their point of views, and LISTEN to what they are saying. It would be very wrong to just assume that things will be different for you.

There is also a non academic part to the culture - social events, etc. Some schools are very inclined towards having a lot of social events and some not so much. So, if you are the kind of person who loves to go out and meet new people, you might want to choose a school that has a lot of social events.

Again, I cannot stress how important culture is for you as it will affect your experience and performance at the business school.

Tips for Selecting the Right Business School

Choosing which schools to apply to is often a very hard decision. I know that I had almost gone crazy when I was shortlisting the schools I wanted to apply to. With all the money that is associated with a b-school application the decision becomes even more difficult.

So, the best way to answer this question is to compare the things I DID when choosing business schools and the things I SHOULD have done.

Here is what I looked for in the business school (in order of importance):

1. Ranking: The first thing I did was took a look at the US News rankings and made a list of schools whose GMAT was in my range and that looked reachable. BIG MISTAKE!!
   
2. Salary: Then I compared the starting salaries of all the schools and picked the ones that I thought I would make it to.
   
3. Other placement stats: Looked at other placement stats like how many placed at graduation, etc. This was not a bad thing to look at.
   
4. Acceptance Rate: Basically wanted to see how competitive the schools are. This is a good thing to look at but there are other things to keep in mind. Even if a school at 5% acceptance rate, but you have what the schools wants and if you are a good fit, you will get in.
   
5. Tuition and Expenses: Looked at scholarship and loan options available. Important thing to look at.
   

Here is what I should have looked at (in order of importance):

1. Cultural Fit - Academic and Non Academic: Do you like and fit in the culture of the school? Case method vs lectures? Competitive school vs laid back school with no grades?
   
2. Placement Industry: What % of students are getting placed in the industry you want to be in. School X might be a top 10 school, and school Y top is ranked 20. But if 50% of school Y students are placed in marketing vs 10% of school X, you might be better off in school Y.
   
3. Location: Is the location a hot spot for your industry? If you want to be in tech, West coast schools are better than east coast school. For Finance, Rochester Simon will help you more than UCLA. Get the point?
   
4. Tuition
5. Placement Stats/Salary
6. Rankings

If you are one of the students who is taking into account the factors int he first group, you NEED to start looking at the second group. I can't stress it enough that if you ignore things like culture and placement industry, you will have a hard time finding internships/jobs.

More to come later.

Ask Me a Question

I thought it would be a good idea to let you readers ask me questions. These questions can be about profile evaluations, general MBA experience, pretty much anything and everything regarding an MBA in the US.

Post your questions as comments and leave your name so I can address my replies to you. Thanks :)

ps: leave your email if you want me to inform you when I have answered your Q.