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Mission Admission: Dust Off Your Resume

Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday.

We at mbaMission try to encourage candidates to get as much “noise” out of the way as possible before schools release their essay questions. We want our candidates to have the freedom to reflect on their experiences, formally and thoroughly brainstorm, choose ideas, prepare outlines and then truly focus on crafting powerful essays. Essentially, we want our candidates to be unfettered as they engage in what is, for many, one of the most significant creative challenges they will ever face.

So, a simple step such as preparing your resume now will help you remain focused in the future. By working on your resume now, a process that can require several rounds of revisions, you can dedicate the required time to do so at a more leisurely pace, before “crunch time” hits. Further, you will lay the foundation for your later brainstorming for your essays, by reminding yourself of your most significant accomplishments.

If you prepare your resume now, you won’t even feel the effects later (except in a good way), and you will definitely thank yourself for having gotten this task out of the way early on.

Note: We recognize that you may achieve additional accomplishments in the next few months. We suggest that you still update your resume now, however, and then revisit and amend your most recent entry one to two weeks before your application deadlines.


Jeremy Shinewald

Jeremy Shinewald  

In addition to being Founder and President of mbaMission, Jeremy Shinewald is a Darden MBA, published author, and the recipient of Poets&Quants’ Lifetime Achievement Award in MBA Admissions Consulting. With more than 20 years of experience and a background as a professional speechwriter, he combines deep industry insight and exceptional storytelling skills to help applicants create powerful, distinctive MBA applications.

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