How to Write an MBA CV – The Ultimate Guide

Without a proper MBA CV, admissions committees will have a difficult time seeing the value in your experience, opting for more obviously qualified candidates who know how to communicate and display their impressive background.

Another important factor? A strong MBA CV can explain or make up for lower test scores.

It’s harder for an admissions committee to refuse a clearly impressive applicant whose work history and education tell a different story than their average test scores.

While there’s much to consider when it comes to an MBA CV, there is also good news: you can use this in-depth guide to steer you toward MBA CV perfection.

This guide isn’t merely to avoid mistakes – it’s to position you as a powerful, accomplished candidate. With a great CV comes great possibility.

1. The basic rules of an MBA CV

There are plenty of best practices covered in this guide, knowing the four basic rules of an MBA CV will help you avoid the most common mistakes that lead to a weak CV or a stressful writing process.

As you review or begin your MBA CV, keep these rules top of mind:

1.1 Keep It to One Page Only

It’s important to show your impressive experience and education, however, brevity and clarity are also key. Keep in mind admissions committees read thousands of CVs, so the likelihood of your four-page CV getting their full attention is unlikely.

Many programs, including Stanford, explicitly mention they want one page CVs.

If you have a story to tell or want to provide more context, look to your MBA essays as the proper outlet to build a narrative. Your CV should be short yet powerful!

1.2 Know the CV Structure

A CV you’d use to secure an internship or job begins with your education history first. However, business schools have a different expectation.

Your MBA CV should be structured as follows:

• Contact Info
• Work Experience
• Education
• Additional Information

In the work experience, education and additional experience sections, use bullet points and short statements.

1.3 Use the Power of Data

(Photo Credit: Chris Liverani)

Before you start revamping or creating your CV, do your research and arm yourself with data about your work experience and education. Know your GPA or how many new members you successfully added to your engineering club. Be certain that your action plan led to a 45% increase in revenue year over year and that the value of the consulting project was $5M USD.

This data will be vital later when you craft the content of your CV because measurable, quantifiable data builds credibility and shows the reader the scope and scale of your experience.

Gathering this data early will make your CV writing easier, accurate and more powerful.

1.4 Show Success, Not Tasks

The purpose of an MBA CV is clear. It isn’t merely to show the tasks you’ve completed or your responsibilities; this isn’t a job description, it’s a sales document!

Building context around your education and work experience matters, but don’t fall into the trap of simply listing tasks you have completed. This is the time to show your achievements.

Which is more powerful and helpful to an admissions committee in understanding both your role AND your success?

Being aware of these common mistakes will benefit your CV, but there’s still more to know if you’re determined to get into your preferred programs, especially around CV content and design practices.

2. The Content an MBA CV Should Contain

The best MBA programs are seeking candidates whose work experience and education communicate a track record of accomplishment and perseverance, the types of indicators that show the applicant is capable and competent enough to learn and work alongside other brilliant students and faculty.

Even if you graduated from the best university, had the most prestigious internship and have climbed the ladder at a Big 4 firm and hold an important title, if you don’t know the content to include or exclude from your CV, you could miss your big opportunity.

To increase your chance of admission, here’s how to approach your CV’s content, starting at the very top of the page.

2.1 Contact Information

Although your application may contain your email address and contact information, it’s important to include on your CV. Should a committee want to reach you quickly and easily, all they need to do is refer to this section.

Here is the contact information to include:

• Full Name: Use your full name, including middle name or initial if you’re commonly known by them
• Phone Number: Include the country code of the phone number you’re most likely to answer; update your voicemail greeting if it’s not especially professional
• Email Address: Your personal email address that you check regularly, ideally a Gmail address. Your email address should be professional and polite, not PartyAllDay47@Hotmail.com.
• Current Location: Use a City/Country format for international applications (Paris, France when applying to INSEAD or LBS) and a City/State format for domestic applications (Chicago, Illinois when applying to Booth or Columbia)
• LinkedIn Link: The committee will refer to your LinkedIn page. Create and include a personalized, shortened LinkedIn URL.

2.1.1 What Not to Include

While it is traditional and accepted practice in many countries to include marital status, citizenship information, height, weight, number of children or personal headshots with a CV, this is absolutely not the case for business school, especially those in the US.

2.2. Work Experience

The work experience section helps admissions committees understand your career trajectory, promotions and success, your opportunity to establish yourself as an impressive candidate.

Shown in chronological order with your most recent position at the top, your work experience should be data rich and specific.

Don’t miss an opportunity to build greater understanding over the companies you’ve worked for. An admissions director at Michigan Ross recently stated the importance of including a company description on CVs, saving their team from performing extensive research as they consider your application and ensuring they grasp the full scope of your professional background. You might structure the company description like this:

Include relevant internships and paid positions, skipping over any jobs in high school or part-time positions you held during college that you only worked to pay your bills. If your work experience is less extensive, include volunteer work in lieu of professional experience because MBA programs value well-rounded candidates who give back.

Your work experience heading should be structured as:

Include the official company name, location or locations where you spent significant time working, the date you started and the date you left the company. If you still work there, just write “Present”.

What if you’ve held multiple roles at a company? Structure your work experience like this:

Notice that the line with JPMorgan Chase shows the entire span of time this person has worked there; each separate position shows how long they worked as an Associate, Junior Analyst and Senior Analyst.

2.2.1 Brevity is Best

When it comes to work experience, brevity is a must. Avoid lengthy paragraphs, unnecessary details and words that don’t substantially develop each point.

Think of a billboard. Each word has significant meaning. Your MBA CV should follow that same model.

Bullet points will help deliver your message while remaining brief. Aim to use no more than 5 bullet points per position. If you have to eliminate content to hit the one page mark, consider reducing the number of bullet points for your internship experiences down to just one per internship. If you must cut a position, cut your weakest or least relevant internship.

Using brevity shouldn’t be thought of as limiting. Instead, think of it as calling attention to the most important parts of your career.

If you were to describe an internship, which option works best?

Spot the difference? While the first one is more descriptive, the second one speaks to the results and most impressive parts of the internship.

Your job is not to be over-descriptive, it’s to briefly and powerfully convey relevant information.

2.2.2 The Power of Data

Another source of weakness in many MBA CVs? Not using data and numbers to tell your story.

While you may know that you managed a big budget project for a client, the reader of your CV does not. They don’t know if a project generated a $2k USD consulting fee or a $5M USD consulting retainer.

Using dollar amounts, percentages and ratios clues the reader in and subtly allows you to demonstrate how important and impactful your work is.

Be aware of quantifier words like “very” or “many.” Not only are they vague, but they miss the opportunity to add actual data to your experience.

Applying the power of data and eliminating quantifier words, notice the difference in impact between these bullet points:

Data shouldn’t be limited to numbers alone. The names of clients or vendors should also make an appearance if it helps build your success story. Counting “two major banks” as clients doesn’t have the same punch as having HSBC and BNP Paribas as clients, for example.

A bonus tip: when discussing currency, convert the amount to the local currency of the program you’re applying to. When in doubt, default to USD which is commonly utilized.

2.2.3 Action Verb Awareness

If your CV feels flat or lacks power, it is likely missing action verbs. Action verbs show activity and movement, words like initiated, fostered, managed, designed and led.

Action verbs in an MBA CV communicate activity and engagement, sounding active instead of passive.

See if you notice how action verbs affect these examples:

The bolded words are action verbs and they’re busy building a sense of activity, interest and progress for the reader.

When applying this to your CV, check the tenses of your action verbs. You managed a team in the past, but you currently manage a team. You oversaw a project, but you currently oversee a project.

2.2.4 Test your MBA CV

Admissions committees are made up of educated and informed people, but it would be foolish to assume they know everything there is to know about your industry or experience.

A good way to think about the readability of your CV is to write it with a total stranger in mind. If they knew nothing about your experience, industry or company and you put your CV in front of them, would they understand what you’ve written?

(Photo Credit: Brooke Cagle)

You may not find any willing strangers to review your CV, so run it past a neighbor or family friend who is both honest with feedback and unfamiliar with your work. They may notice language or terms that are confusing, like this:

Jargon and acronyms make a CV harder to read. If a term is not used outside of your company or industry, find a new way to phrase it. Acronyms like KPI or ROI are common enough to be understood and included, but continue asking yourself if it passes the “stranger test.”

2.2.5 The Whole Truth

The temptation to embellish or outright lie on an MBA CV can lead applicants astray down a path that has serious negative consequences.

One true example? An MBA candidate used their friend’s volunteer work on their own CV, listing organizations they had never been part of. During the interview, the candidate found themselves speaking with the founder of an organization she claimed to volunteer with. Suspecting that the answers didn’t add up, the interviewer researched the candidate, discovered the lie and eliminated the candidate’s dream of attending her first choice program.

Lying or embellishing is not only unethical and detrimental, it’s also increasingly easy to recognize and expose. A quick email or Google search is all it takes to find the truth and ruin your MBA plans.

No matter the stakes, pressure or competition, tell the truth.

2.3 Education

The education section of an MBA CV is your platform to communicate impressive undergraduate or graduate school achievements, delivered chronologically, but one must know what to include and what to leave out.

2.3.1 What to include

When it comes to must-haves for your education section, include the following:

• Class rank or class standings if you graduated near the top of your class (ex. 2nd out of 500)
• Grade Point Average (GPA) according to the university’s scale (ex. 7.5/10)
• Scholarships you received; if you were chosen from hundreds or thousands of applicants, add this data
• Extracurricular activities like sports and clubs, mentioning any tournaments or awards you might’ve won along with any leadership positions you held
• Published work, including theses, creative writing or research projects
• Volunteer work that you were significantly involved with
• Study abroad experiences, including the dates, university names and locations

2.3.2 What not to include:

There are a few things to leave off of your education section, including:

• Low GPAs, poor class standings or anything that might lead a committee to view your education in a negative light
• Mentions of high school—with two caveats. If you went to high school abroad or accomplished something incredible during high school that led to major recognition, these are worth keeping.

The education section follows many of the same rules that the work experience section does. Use data with specific and brief bullet points that show the highlights, not an exhaustive summary of every activity or project you completed.

The format of the education section should look like this:

An important note: when applying to internships during your MBA, move the education section back to the top like a traditional CV.

2.4 Additional Information

An MBA CV is factual and professional, but that doesn’t mean an MBA applications committee isn’t looking for the person behind the work experience and education. They want to be sure candidate achievements continue into their personal life and that their interests complement or contrast those of the MBA community.

(Photo Credits: Annie Spratt)

2.4.1 What the Additional Information Section Should Include 

When it comes to the Additional Information section, the best CVs include:

• Languages: Include the languages you know beyond a basic level, plus any certifications/tests that show your knowledge (ex: TOEFL)
• Travel: Show any cultural exploration and travel interest in this section. Include the number of countries you’ve visited and any unique or memorable trips (ex: backpacking the Appalachian Trail or studying abroad in Mongolia)
• Courses and Certifications: List any training or courses you’ve completed as well as certifications you’ve received after university. Include the name of the institution or program, plus the year completed (ex. CFA Level II, 2016)
• Volunteer Work: Show the admissions committee your humanitarian side by listing volunteer projects you’ve participated in. Name the organization, your role in the organization and the years you participated.
• Personal Interests: List what you love doing outside of the office, including your diverse and interesting hobbies like running marathons, visiting museums, practicing jiu jitsu or surfing. Don’t be afraid to show who you are!

(Photo Credits: Igor Miske)

Business schools are seeking well-rounded, dynamic and interesting candidates who will add to the community and make it diverse; few MBA programs want carbon copies of the same candidate profile because it creates a one-dimensional community that does not reflect the real world.

Here’s a great example:

Leverage the Additional Information section to make yourself an even more unique and attractive candidate!

3: This is How an MBA CV Should Look

The content of your MBA CV is important but don’t forget that the visual appearance of your CV matters, too. Designed properly, your CV is easier to read, calls attention to the highlights of your work and education and uses page space more effectively, allowing you to include more information.

3.1 Formatting your MBA CV – Best Practices

In many word processor programs, the blank document includes headers, footers and 2.5 cm margins. However, for an MBA CV, remove the headers and footers and resize margins to just 1.25 cm. You’ll be amazed how much space this frees up!

When it comes to font choice, keep it professional with font choices like Times New Roman, Arial or Helvetica. Font sizes can reasonably range from 10-12 points as long as the words are easily legible.

Choosing the right colors for your MBA CV is simple: black and white only! Even if purple is the cornerstone of your personal brand, black and white MBA CVs are the right answer.

Hitting ‘Enter’ or ‘Return’ to start a new line takes a surprising amount of page space. Instead, eliminate these full line breaks and add 3-4 points of space after or before each paragraph. This will create the visual break that’s required to show a new section without eating up page space.

Be mindful of using bold and italic. In limited and carefully chosen applications, like the names of companies or universities, bold and italic fonts can show differentiation, new sections or call attention to information. If used too liberally, however, they become visually overwhelming and lose their power. Note how bold and italics can become distracting and difficult to read:

Your MBA CV is not the time to show your graphic design prowess or artistic side; use conservative designs and leave the progressive page layouts to other projects.

When submitting your MBA CV, unless the program you’re applying to asks otherwise, send it as a PDF. A PDF prevents any changes in the file that could occur when sending your CV to someone who doesn’t have the same software or operating system.

A template is often helpful in building a great CV. Follow this link and download a free MBA CV template that incorporates proper formatting, order and design elements.

4. Get Started on Your MBA CV

Done correctly, your MBA CV will help you achieve your goal of being accepted to your preferred program. You’ve worked and studied hard to reach this point and your CV is proof!

In addition to the CV template above, download this handy checklist. Use it to check that your CV is using best practices and you’re not leaving out anything that an admissions committee will look for.

However, if you want to be absolutely confident your MBA CV is as effective and impactful as it can be, an MBA coach and CV expert will transform a good CV into a great CV, ensuring there are no spelling or grammar errors, your experience is positioned effectively and the CV fits the values of your preferred programs.

Ready for the next step? Schedule your free consultation and move in the direction of your goals.