How to present Work Experience in a Resume

Professional Experience in Resume: An MBA resume must be focused majorly on marketing the applicant’s professional, team and leadership skills. The resume must also clearly convey the entrepreneurial initiatives and achievements of the applicant (if any). Now, the point to be considered here is that if you do not possess any professional experience, then how do you present your resume? In this situation, you should endeavour to highlight any practical experience you may have gained, whether through an internship, some project, some initiatives you led at college or even if it is just helping your parents or relatives in your family business.

Also, ensure to refrain from including activities pertaining to your hobbies or maybe just a part-time work engagement, which you may have undertaken to earn some money, as your professional experience. An MBA application resume should also focus on the academic excellence as well as extracurricular achievements of the applicant, including sports, cultural events, and/or voluntary contribution and community service, as these aspects also represent several managerial qualities, which are highly desirable in a prospective MBA applicant. For more relevant information, refer to ‘How to Prepare Resume for MBA Application’ and ‘How to Prepare Resume for MS Application’.

Applying clear, flawless language, coupled with to-the-point content structure and flow, and some calculated presentation of your experience, skills and expertise, will prove your resume to be an absolute winner, and will go a long way in winning you your deserved seat at your dream university. 

Let us consider a Business Analyst MBA applicant, whose responsibilities include conducting primary and secondary research as per client requirements; performing financial and market analysis; conducting market research reports on products and service trends; and SWOT analysis on key market players. Here, quantifying is the key! In the example mentioned above, the applicant should remember to briefly include the result of research and analysis, and the effective percentage increase in the profit, if any. Have % and $ signs where possible and required. Explicitly mention the situation, your action for its solution and the outcome. Also remember to make use of strong, active verbs. You may consider replacing ‘Responsible for’ or ‘Worked’ with ‘Engaged in’, ‘Led’, ‘Organized’, ‘Managed’, ‘Achieved’, or ‘Delivered’. Remember to use verbs in the present tense for current job and past tense for past jobs and projects.

Read: Standard Academic Resume Format

Useful Tips for MBA Applicants to Prepare a Resume

MBA applicants can follow these tips to create an impactful resume:

• In the case of single employment, you may bucket your project experience according to your initiatives, experience, leadership skills and practices, and cross-functional roles in the organization. 
• Narrate your leadership practices, academic excellence and achievements, and extracurricular activities in the achievements and accolades section of your resume. How well you present these will define to the Admission Committee your future performance as a student and may also enable the Committee to take a favourable decision for your candidature.
• There is always enough space and requirements for mentioning your other strengths and skills in your resume. You may include your known languages, technical skills (including computer software, hardware and Internet abilities), strategic thinking, financial analysis and voluntary work here. Highlight these and give examples of how you utilised them in your past work or academic experiences.
• Finally, your resume is your first and only chance to impress the admission committee of your much-desired college/ university. Due to the enormous number of resumes received by the committee, they usually scurry through the documents and form an image of the applicant, based on the first ten seconds of their perusal of the applicant’s resume. This naturally implies that if you aspire to succeed in securing a seat in your desired university, you have to cast a great impression on the admission committee and that too, swiftly!

• Quantify your achievements: Make use of numbers and statistics in order to quantify your achievements, such as the size of the teams you managed, revenue generated by you, or the cost savings you achieved. This way your accomplishments will appear more tangible and impressive to employers.

Useful Links

• Resume/ CV Writing Tips for Studying Abroad
• Common Errors in a Resume
• Difference between MS and MBA Resume