Imagine an admissions officer at one of the busiest time of the year, who has to go through approximately 20 files a day to get through all the applications that have been sent in. The first thing that the admissions officer will look at is your business school resume.

The resume provides a quick and complete introduction of the applicant. Thus, it is the most important part of any application and you need to spend as much time on writing and perfecting your resume as you would on developing an essay.

Through all this process you need to keep in mind that the admissions officer will only be spending about 20 to 30 minutes assessing and evaluating your application. Meaning, you have approximately 2-3 minutes to make your case through your resume. The three things your resume should do is; capture attention, inspire the reader and influence their decision.

Here are five tips to keep in mind if you want to achieve all three tasks through your resume.

Start Off by Standing Out

Have you heard about the anchoring effect? It is well known fact that the first piece of information we receive about a person actually influences their overall perception.

Meaning that the first document an admissions officer comes across when reading your file influences the overall perception that he has of your entire application and your skills and capabilities. For any admissions officer, most of the time the first document that they pick up is your business school resume. Thus, for your resume to stand out you need to ensure that your resume gives a stellar first impression. It should be professional, easy to ready, interesting and a concise read for the officer.

Give Context to Your Work

While your work experience is very much clear to you, it isn’t to the reader.  Listing a well-known company on your resume provides instant recognition of the workplace, whereas a relatively unknown company may be less relatable for the reader.

Therefor, to show the reader an overview of what you do and what your workplace is like, give a little insight on your work and the context behind it. Make sure the reader understands the purpose and the significance of your organisation. Describe what your company does, who the clients are, what their purpose is, where and who their market is and how much revenue the organisation earns.

Take Time to Translate

When you are applying for business school and also have a background in other fields, translate any other technical jargon or phrases that can be understood by any person.

Make your resume easy to read and understand so that the admissions officer can learn about you without giving it a second thought. Make sure that the reader takes one glance at your resume and has complete idea of what your work responsibilities have been.

Show What You Did, Not What You Do

One of the most common mistakes seen on resumes when stating job description is portraying your work with what your ‘work title’ displays. That is, these sentences often begin with ‘responsible for’, ‘in charge of’ or ‘manages’. Although these phrases state clearly what your job description may be, but the real work you do or what you have achieved during your time there is still unknown.

Thus, for better impression of your resume make sure to include the results of your work in your job description, what you have accomplished, how you are contributing to making your organisation better and what you have to offer in your particular job description. This will help the admissions officer identify your skills and capabilities with a clear image.

Be Extraordinary

With the admissions officer reading resume after resume, they all start to sound somewhat the same after some time. To distinguish yourself from the bunch and make your resume stand out, you need to include some information or tidbit in your resume that is out of the ordinary.

Thus, for every organisation you have worked, make sure to mention the clients you have worked for to show the scope of your work. Include something commendable that you might have done at your work that led to appraisal from a number of people.

In my years of experience being on both sides of the admissions desk, I can say with some authority that one of the biggest mistakes I see with resumes is that they are written from the applicant’s perspective rather than the reader’s point of view. These tips will help you think like an admission officer, so you can create a remarkable resume that gets results.

Magna Carta College, Oxford’s independent business school is the perfect opportunity to help make your resume standout with an excellent educational background. With courses ranging from International MBA to various executive courses. It brings you the chance to learn something new in your own comfort and time with flexible distributed learning.