Tips on Organizing a Strong Resume

One point worth keeping in mind about your resume is the amount of time the reader will spend on the document - typically 1-3 minutes. Given this, layout and readability are both extremely important. A good resume starts in the presentation: how the document is organized and designed, as well as the content you choose to include, and how that is presented. Here are a few things to consider when judging the effectiveness of your own resume.

1. The document must be easy to look at.  For example, if the font is too small, the margins are tiny, and everything is crammed together, your reader will get a bad first impression.  This is especially important because the person reading your resume will likely only give it a minute or two, in total.  So it is vitally important to avoid having a bad impression.  Here is a small checklist to keep in mind:

a) Use a typical font, such as Times New Roman 10.5 or 11.

b) Use margins of between 10mm to 15mm all the way around, for instance using 10mm for the top and bottom, and then 15mm for the left and right sides. This will ensure your document has some white space in the margins and is centered properly on the page.

c) Ensure the paper setting is correct: for documents going to the US or Canada, use "letter-sized", and for outside the US, use "A4". Here is a page on betweenborders.com that explains the difference.  Even though many schools these days have computerized their application reading process, it is still worthwhile to be aware of the difference. 

d) Decide on line settings that will make your bullet points readable, and avoid crunching lines together in order to fit too much onto one page.  If you are using Microsoft Word, under "home" go to "line spacing options". Set it at "exactly" and at a setting between 12pt, 13pt or 14pt.  In addition, after each bullet point have a small margin, in order to ensure each bullet is separated nicely.  Experiment with these settings until you have arrived at the setting that makes your resume look best: not too packed together, and with a small bit of space between each bullet point.

2. Keep it to 1 page (see my previous post on why this is best) by selecting what to focus on rather than including everything you've ever done! When deciding, ask yourself what skills you possess that are most relevant to your future - either skills that demonstrate your ability to succeed at graduate school, or skills that are relevant to your future goals. What skills that you possess will an admissions officer or future employer value? Highlight your relevant skills in the bullet points of your resume. 

3. Avoid too much personal information (marital status, age, number of children, height, weight etc) unless requested. Such information can be distracting because it is not what your reader will be expecting when they review your document - so be sure to manage their expectations effectively.

4. Avoid long lists of adjectives like "dedicated team player" and other such fluff. These are not valuable additions to a resume, and are better included elsewhere. For instance for a job applicant, your personal description of characteristics relevant to the job to which you are applying could be in the cover letter.  And for grad school applicants, such concepts are hopefully to be found in your recommendation letters.

5. Include a short list of personal activities in the additional section. In terms of what to choose, this is the criteria I consider: 

a) The activity should demonstrate something appealing about you.

b) You can show a strong time commitment to the activity.

c) The content should be recent.

d) The content is strategic.  

If the activity fits all three criteria, then certainly include it.  For instance if you have been a starting member of a community basketball team for the past 1.5 years and you play twice a month, this is worthy of inclusion. You can highlight team and/or leadership experience, and also you have shown dedication to the activity.  It is easy to see how an activity that does not meet all three criteria would not be worth including: a 2-hour volunteer experience in 1994 that was never repeated is probably not worth fitting on your page, especially if you have more recent and significant experiences.

In terms of point d), some activities people do regularly are just not worth including in the resume, even if they fit a) b) and c). Many people read hundreds of books, or watch hundreds of movies, for instance.  However interesting such activities are, they should not typically be included in your resume, because they don't say anything interesting about you.

6. Make sure each individual bullet point, no matter what section it is in, is clear, impressive and impactful.

7. Have someone whose opinion you trust read your resume and give you feedback on it. It can be difficult to assess the effectiveness of your own work.

Steps 2, 6, and 7 will likely require assistance, so do consult with a professional to ensure your resume is working as effectively as possible. Finally, be sure to read carefully the instructions provided by the school you are applying to, or the recruiter or company to whom you will send your resume.  There may be additional instructions, including the number of lines to use, or other sections that may be requested such as international experience or situation-specific information.  Show that you may taken the time to understand their specifications and reflect them the version of your resume you send to them.

John Couke
john.couke@gmail.com

1-page or 2-page Resume?

Your resume is an important document that requires constant attention and updating, even if you are not looking for a job or applying to grad school.  How long should this document be? Look around on the internet and you'll see people advocating for a 2-page resume, especially if you have a lot of working experience or a lot of academic accomplishments like written publications. Others swear that the only good resume is a 1-page version, where you limit and focus the content on just that which is most relevant to its audience.  Which is right?

My short answer is that the 1-page resume is the only document which should be used in your job or school application (except for those positions that very explicitly ask for a detailed and complete curriculum vitae, usually involving lengthy detail on academic accomplishments).  But that doesn't mean there is no use for a longer version.

I recommend regularly maintaining and adding to a 2-4 page resume, that is inclusive, and documents all of your positions and accomplishments. When you decide to apply for a job, or grad school, or anything else that requires a resume for that matter, then you can take this long resume and cut it down to a final 1 page version that is highly presentable because it shows a focused and strategic version of you.  For the purposes of this article, let's call the long list of accomplishments the "master" resume, and the 1 page version the "finished" resume. There are several benefits to be had from such a system.

Benefit #1: You can keep everything, without having to show everything.

For many, it is hard to cut their 6th consecutive M&A deal from a resume, especially when they all seem to be so interesting!  But the reality is that this level of duplicity is rarely necessary in a finished resume.  So, keep the master resume as a comprehensive list, while the finished resume can be a more focused version that contains just those contents that are most relevant for the job or application.  This is a great way to fulfill both urges people feel when they make a resume: 1) they want it to reflect absolutely everything, and 2) they want to feel that it is focused to the individual reader. It is hard to accomplish both with just one document, so don't even try.

Benefit #2: Content which is cut from the final version doesn't disappear.

I used to keep just a 1-page resume, and so when I decided to add something, invariably something else had to be cut.  This is fine of course, but what if one of those cut accomplishments may have some level of value in a different, future situation? If all you are doing is continually refining and juggling the content in your 1-page resume, then once you cut something you may forget about it - and it may be useful later.

Benefit #3: The master resume can be easily adapted into a finished resume that is targeted for specific situations. 

I've mentioned here that the finished resume needs to focus the reader's attention on the details of your background that are most relevant for them. Given this, a finished resume for your application to the MIT Sloan MBA program (where, by the way, they require a resume that is not "more than one page in length (up to 50 lines)",  is not necessarily going to be the same resume you would submit for a job as a domestic sales manager at a fashion retailer. Your finished resume should instead be catered to fit each individual need to which it may be applied. 

Note that as you finalize resumes for different purposes, you are not only cutting the volume of material so that it fits 1 page, but you may also be tweaking the word choice within bullet points to highlight different skills that you may aim to highlight for different purposes.

But why is it so necessary to make all of these painful cuts in order to arrive at my finished 1 page resume? Wouldn't a 2 page version just be easier to make? Why do I have to carefully go over all of my accomplishments in order to find just those key ones that are most representative of my skill-set, and that are most relevant to the reader? In asking these questions, you are giving yourself the answers: you need to make all of these decisions and evaluations of your resume content, so that your reader doesn't have to.  Your 1-page resume is the movie trailer of (the relevant parts of) your life - it is short, to the point, and gets the viewer interested in wanting to learn more.  Can a two-page resume do this? In most cases it can, but a one-page resume does it better, because it foes it more succinctly. There is a reason why movie trailers are only 2 minutes on average. It is not because there is anything wrong with a 10-minute trailer. The reason is because 2 minutes is all that it takes to make you understand, and get you interested in the story being told.

Here's a quick summary of the benefits of having a 1 page resume:

1) A 1 page resume offers the strongest initial impact, and makes it easy for the reader to quickly scan your background and be impressed.

2) A 1 page resume has only the most highly relevant and impressive content, because you have taken the time to select which bullet points to include.

3) A 1 page resume doesn't require the reader to go back and forth between pages or have to hunt for what they are looking for. Everything is laid out clearly.


John Couke
john.couke@gmail.com

Deliberate Practice

This is a re-posting of a blog submission I made last year. It turned out to be one of the most popular postings I made in 2012, and its message is important so I am reposting it for the benefit of those about to embark on the admissions process...

One very interesting book I have read recently is Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everyone Else, by Geoff Colvin. In this book, he attempts to define what makes some people amazing at what they do, and in doing so shows that answers like "they are really smart" or "they work hard" are not entirely correct.  Instead, he points to something he defines as deliberate practice as the key to success.  Deliberate practice is, by his definition, boring, repetitive, highly focused on weaknesses, and informed by instruction.  It is hard to do and is rarely enjoyable.  But the people that do it, do it regularly, and do it well, can and do succeed. 

When I read this book immediately I thought of Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule. He wrote about this in his book Outliers: Stories of Success, showing how often, those who have achieved great success have done so by acquiring focused experience (i.e. 10,000 hours worth) in a particular area.  I wondered what the similarities and differences were between Colvin and Gladwell's approach.  Read on in a recent posting to the Barking up the Wrong Tree blog (which comes highly recommended by the way) to see how these ideas come together.

The importance for MBA or LLM applicants?  Hard work - effort - is not enough, and simply worrying about your situation is not enough too.  Instead, you need to acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses, work closely with someone to build a plan to highlight the strengths and address the weaknesses, and then carry out that plan.   This applies to document preparation, and to interview practice as well.

John Couke
john.couke@gmail.com

Responsibilities and Accomplishments in the Resume (Part 2)

This is a follow-up to an earlier posting I wrote titled Mixing Responsibilities and Accomplishments in the Resume.  In that posting I discussed how to make a clear distinction between responsibilities and accomplishments in the resume.  In this posting I'd like to mention why this is important, and why accomplishments are a better use of your resume real estate than responsibilities.

ABC Corporation                                     Toronto, Canada

Director, Sales Department                      4/2011 - present

- manage team of 8

- write annual sales plan for product line of entire company and aim to beat forecasts

- work closely with regional sales reps across North America and Europe

- responsible for making pricing strategies

What do we have as bullet point content here? Essentially, a lot of detail on what you would expect a Director of the Sales Department to have to manage.  In fact, if you were looking for a generic description of the prototypical Director of Sales, then here it is. This is good and fine, as it is clear and to the point and obviously this person is responsible to no small degree for the bottom line of the company based on whether or not she is been successful at her work.

The problem is this: has this person been successful? Is it possible for you, given the information provided, to assess how well she has done her job? The answer is no, and this can be very frustrating to the evaluator of a resume, who aims to understand how well the job has been done - not just what the job entails.  They want to evaluate your performance, but they cannot without understanding not only what you were supposed to do, but what you actually did. The key then is to convert a lot of bullet points to accomplishments.

ABC Corporation                                     Toronto, Canada

Director, Sales Department                      4/2011 - present

- Selected, based on accomplishment, to manage team of 8 selling the entire product line worldwide

- Developed annual sales plan for entire company product line and beat sales projections by 20% in FY2012

- Worked closely with regional sales reps across North America and Europe to increase sales in key markets (increased sales in North America by 15%) and develop new markets (created new business worth US$1M/year in France)

- Created new pricing strategies that allowed for penetration of key young adult demographic in the US

This, above, shows accomplishments. It is not written well (yet), but at the very least offers more information - namely the results of this person's efforts and hard work.  More can be done to highlight these accomplishments. For instance, this could be changed:

- Worked closely with regional sales reps across North America and Europe to increase sales in key markets (increased sales in North America by 15%) and develop new markets (created new business worth US$1M/year in France)

to something that emphasizes the result, and then adds detail about the work that was done:

- Created new business worth US$1M/year in France by establishing new business framework with Paris-based sales reps

- Increased sales in key North America market by 15% by introducing new channel segmentation that focused on shelf space in large retail chains

.. and so on.  The point here is that in a resume your responsibilities don't do a lot of talking - it's what you could actually accomplish that shows the true impact you had on your organization. (note: you can also add the "responsibility line" directly underneath the title, as I demonstrated here)

If your resume looks like example one at the top of this post, start working in your accomplishments, so that the reader of your resume can better evaluate how well you've done the work expected of you. 

John Couke

john.couke@gmail.com

LLM Deadlines are Slowly Being Released

For LLM applicants anxious to get their schedule updated with this year's deadlines, a few schools - New York University Law School, Harvard Law School, Georgetown Law and Berkeley Law have released their information.  

New York University offers a deadline of 12/17/2012 for international students.

Harvard Law School has a deadline of 12/1/2012, however applicants are strongly encouraged to apply by 11/15/2012. 

Georgetown Law has announced an Early Action deadline of 11/15/2012, and a Regular Action for foreign-trained attorneys of 2/15/2013. 

Berkeley Law has announced that their deadline is 12/15/2012. 

As for other schools, including Columbia Law School, Chicago Law and Stanford Law School, as of this blog posting deadlines hadn't been released.  Be sure to keep checking each program's official admissions pages to get the most accurate and up to date information, rather than relying on other sites such as LSAC.org.  Over the next two weeks or so most schools will probably have released their deadlines.

John Couke

john.couke@gmail.com

Choosing an Admissions Counselor

These days, more than ever, you have a lot of choices when it comes to choosing an admissions counselor.  The criteria? There are a lot of things to consider, not the least of which include the location and/or flexibility of the counseling service, as well as the availability of the counselor him/herself.  A bigger thing to keep in mind is the feel you have when communicating with a potential counselor - is this someone I can work with? Will I respect what they have to say?  I think that clients, and often counselors themselves, are looking for a good sense of "fit" with each other, as the applications they are discussing together are of great importance.

However, beyond the flexibility of the scheduling, and beyond the comfort level you have with a prospective counselor, one thing stands above everything else.

Has your prospective counselor helped people gain admission to your top choice program(s) before? 

If they have, great. Ask questions. What years, and how many people? Ask them if there may be anything different about your situation (note: there will be).

If they haven't, then naturally you are accepting some degree of risk if you elect to work with them.  This, to me, is simple common sense. What have they done? If you are aiming for a top MBA and they have a lot of experience with top programs, then this could be alright. But what if they have little or no experience helping people get into MBA programs at all?  Maybe in such a case their selling points include transferable skills that they feel will help you with your application. This may work or it may not, and the risk you assume is based on the idea that they will be able to figure things out and adapt well to this new situation as you work on your applications.

If you can't ask them directly before working with them, because a) you don't know who they are, or b) they or someone else won't allow it, then why are you even considering them as an option in the first place? 

John Couke

john.couke@gmail.com

Proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel and using the Internet

Is this line necessary, or even useful in the additional section of your resume?  The short answer, in virtually all cases, is no.  While all of these may be desirable skills, they are not differentiated or unique ones, and so they have no place in the modern resume.

What's more, the line is so vague that it loses all meaning entirely.  "Proficient in using the internet".  What exactly does that mean?  Typing a phrase into Google, or designing elaborate web sites?

The same goes for Word and Excel - can you type, or do you have experience in programming elaborate macros that allow your worksheets to do things out of the ordinary?  If the latter, the detail will probably be present in accomplishments or projects elsewhere in the resume.  If the former - then just cut the line entirely.

John Couke

john.couke@gmail.com

(This post is cross-posted in my Next Step Resumes blog, that is focused on providing resume advice for people aiming for the next step (job or school) in their life.)

Deliberate Practice

One very interesting book I have read recently is Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everyone Else, by Geoff Colvin. In this book, he attempts to define what makes some people amazing at what they do, and in doing so shows that answers like "they are really smart" or "they work hard" are not entirely correct.  Instead, he points to something he defines as deliberate practice as the key to success.  Deliberate practice is, by his definition, boring, repetitive, highly focused on weaknesses, and informed by instruction.  It is hard to do and is rarely enjoyable.  But the people that do it, do it regularly, and do it well, can and do succeed. 

When I read this book immediately I thought of Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule. He wrote about this in his book Outliers: Stories of Success, showing how often, those who have achieved great success have done so by acquiring focused experience (i.e. 10,000 hours worth) in a particular area.  I wondered what the similarities and differences were between Colvin and Gladwell's approach.  Read on in a recent posting to the Barking up the Wrong Tree blog (which comes highly recommended by the way) to see how these ideas come together.

The importance for MBA or LLM applicants?  Hard work - effort - is not enough, and simply worrying about your situation is not enough too.  Instead, you need to acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses, work closely with someone to build a plan to highlight the strengths and address the weaknesses, and then carry out that plan.    This applies to document preparation, and to interview practice as well.

John Couke
john.couke@gmail.com

Choosing an Advisor for your LLM Application

LLM program applicants have several options when it comes to choosing who to get advice from on their applications.  In this entry I'll investigate the pros and cons of three possible sources of advice: a lawyer, an admissions consultant, and an English teacher / essay editor.

Lawyers:

Pros:  Depending on which lawyer you choose, he/she may have applied to and experienced an LLM themselves. In this case, they can give you valuable information about their experience in the program, such as what classes were interesting and the academic interests held by certain professors. A lawyer can also be of use when writing a particularly academic essay, such as the one required by Harvard Law School, in which you need to (for instance) offer a legal analysis to address a current issue in your area of expertise.  In such a situation they may be able to offer a commentary as to the legal validity or persuasiveness of your argument and/or solution.

Cons: Again, it depends on who you work with, but a lawyer may have little or no experience helping people get into an LLM program.  This is worth considering.  They may say (for instance) that your goals or the area of your background you have chosen to describe make sense - but do they know if they are persuasive from an admissions standpoint?  Experiencing an LLM in and of itself does not mean someone is qualified to tell you what you should or shouldn't be writing about.

Admissions consultants:

Pros: Your admissions consultant may have extensive experience helping people gain acceptance to their first choice LLM program.  If their experience with a particular school is strong, then they may be able to help you gain admittance to the same program. Also, if they have a lot of experience, they may be in a position to compare the relative strength of your application to those they have seen in the past.  

Cons: Depending on when you ask, a popular consultant may be busy, or may not have any time at all to spare for you. Admissions consulting is a seasonal job, obviously because admissions runs on a deadline basis, and a lot of schools tend to have similar deadlines.  Availability may be an issue and so you'll need to plan ahead if you intend to go this route.

English teachers or English essay editors:

Pros: If cost is an issue this option may be attractive because often English teachers offer a relatively low hourly rate for their time. Availability is probably also not an issue because English teaching or editing is not a seasonal field.

Cons: This is certainly going to be case-by-case, but most often the negative point here will be lack of experience with the LLM admissions process. As a result, your essays may read well and utilize nice grammar, but unfortunately from a strategic perspective they may be lacking - and this is a daunting risk to take as an applicant.  

Conclusion:

Working with an admissions consultant is likely the best option, however there is one caveat: it is always best to work with not just any counselor. but instead a counselor who has extensive experience guiding former clients into your top-choice program. So if you elect to use an admissions counselor, choose yours carefully, and ensure the other factors listed above (availability, etc.) meet your criteria. At the end of the day, this decision must be made by each individual.  So choose the option that is best for you, given your own unique circumstances.

John Couke

john.couke@gmail.com

LLM Applicants: Organizing Resume Sections

There are three primary differences that separate the LLM resume from resumes for other programs: the ordering of sections, the inclusion of additional sections, and the overall length of the document.

1) Ordering the Sections on the Page

Your academic background and performance is a very important part of your overall LLM application. In some cases that I have seen it is even more directly related to the LLM experience that recent working experience. For this reason, I have often suggested to former clients that they emphasize their academic accomplishment by featuring the education section at the top of the resume, just underneath the contact information and before the professional experience - even if this puts the entire document out of reverse chronological order.  The difference may not seem like a lot - after all both education and experience will appear in the document - but the impact is to me strong and especially so for applicants with a strong academic background. Reordering in this way can lead to a very good first impression for the resume reader.

2) Inclusion of additional sections

The LLM resume should be made up of the same sections that would be found in a normal resume, namely: contact information, education, professional experience and additional.  However a strong LLM resume can also include additional sections, each of which add value by being relevant to the academic rigors of the LLM.  These sections can include Academic Publications or Academic Presentations.  Each will give the reader a strong understanding of the applicant's academic experience. They can also help the reader to see the particular legal fields in the which the applicant has academic experience or focuses on in their work.

3) Length

I feel strongly that a good resume is a 1-page document, as I have written before.  I feel the same is true for the LLM resume: a strong presentation of professional and academic skills is best done over one single page, where just the most relevant accomplishments are included. A resume that goes slightly over 1 page can be cut down by reformatting or simply removing some additional section contents (which are sometimes less important for LLM applications). However, I have in my experience seen some applicants with enough content spanning education, professional experience, academic publications and presentations to warrant a 2-page document, and so certainly the resume can be formatted to achieve this in a way that is pleasing to the eye and easy to read.  

John Couke

john.couke@gmail.com

LLM Applicants: 5 Things to do this Summer

I haven't been posting much about LLM applicants on this blog, mostly because this time of year all the admissions news is about deadline and essay topic releases for MBA programs.  But this doesn't mean that LLM applicants shouldn't be busy themselves (apart from work of course).  Here are 

1. Get a high TOEFL score.

TOEFL is a requirement for most programs, and in many cases the minimum is 100.  Some programs may accept strong applicants with a 98 or 99, but others won't.  Knowing which school does and which doesn't is not a necessity now - what you should instead be doing is putting your efforts into achieving as high a TOEFL score as possible to benefit your LLM application.

2. Get English transcripts from your university and determine your GPA.

Your academic background is one of the most important elements of your LLM application, so it is worth your while to know as early as possible how yours may rank when compared to your competition.  Calculate your GPA for your undergraduate degree as well as your law school degree and share it with your counselor to evaluate if there are any strengths to be emphasized, or weaknesses to be considered.

3. Wait for deadlines to come out.

This should be mid-August to mid-September for the vast majority of top US programs.  Deadline information is often accessible either via the LSAC application site or the LLM program's own pages directly. I encourage all applicants to verify information directly with the latter - i.e. the school's official website.  While awaiting deadlines, consider starting the last two items on this list.

4.  Research schools.

It never hurts to take a look into what programs offer what kinds of unique academic opportunities.  While the core programs may not seem to be different from one school to the next, the reality is that LLM programs are quite different from each other in several ways both inside and outside the classroom.  The websites are only starting points - and some programs don't offer reams of information online.  Talk to alumni and aim to reach out to current students finishing up their program to learn more.

5.  Start thinking about who your referees might be and what you may wish to write about in your essays.  

It never hurts to reach out to your university zemi professor if you intend to ask them to write a recommendation letter on your behalf. In terms of the essays, don't be concerned that this year's applications questions haven't been released - they don't change much form year to year. So while I wouldn't recommend that you draft and finalize your essays based on last year's app, reviewing the previous year's questions isn't a bad idea. 

John Couke

john.couke@gmail.com

London School of Economics to Offer New Executive LLM

The London School of Economics is now offering a new Executive LLM program beginning in the fall of 2013. The program will feature intensive modules delivered over a time period of 3 or 4 years, and is designed for those who cannot take a full one year break from their work.

More details are available at the official site of the program.  The application process page for the program notes a TOEFL minimum of 109 and an IELTS overall score of at least 7.5. The application itself will be ready in October 2012.

John Couke
john.couke@gmail.com

Chronological vs Skill-Based Resumes

Choosing between a chronological and a skill-based layout is necessary when designing the layout of your resume. Both have merits, although a chronologically organized resume will clearly be superior for most. This post defines each resume style, and then lists reasons why the chronological resume is preferable.

1) The Difference Between Chronological and Skill-Based Resumes

Chronological Resumes:

A chronological resume will list contents within the academic and professional experiences sections in the order they occurred. Most resumes are reverse chronological, i.e. the most recent position (or degree) is on the top of the section.  Like this:

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Company A, Barcelona Spain

Senior Strategic Consultant 4/2011 - present

Company B, New York, USA

Marketing Project Manager 4/2009 - 9/2010

Business Consultant 4/2006 - 3/2009

Company C, New York, USA

Business Consultant 4/2004 - 3/2006

Marketing Manager 4/2002 - 3/2004

Administration Manager 4/2001 - 3/2002

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

University XYZ, Masters 3/2001

University XYZ, Bachelors 3/1999

All jobs are listed, right back until the university career was completed. One concern with a chronological resume is that gaps in experience become readily noticeable, like the one above from 10/2010 to 3/2011.  This is not necessarily a problem as long as the additional section of the resume explains what they were doing during that time.

ADDITIONAL

Gained intermediate-level certification in Spanish language from ABC school in Barcelona (10/2010 to 1/2011)

Any additional question marks (why learn Spanish?) would be covered by the nature of the responsibilities or accomplishments in the Senior Marketing Consultant position that started in 4/2011, or if not then in a statement included as part of the job/school application. In this rough simulation above, the gap makes sense, as it appears this person chose to study Spanish prior to starting their current position, where it would presumably be useful.

Skill-Based Resumes:

A skill-based resume groups working experience by the nature of the work, rather than in a chronological way. Here is the same example as above, but reorganized into a skill-based format (with the academic and additional sections deleted for the purpose of the example).

Strategic Consulting Experience:

Company A, Barcelona Spain

Senior Strategic Consultant 4/2011 - present

Company B, New York, USA

Business Consultant 4/2006 - 3/2009

Company C, New York, USA

Business Consultant 4/2004 - 3/2006

Marketing Experience:

Company B, New York, USA

Marketing Project Manager 4/2009 - 9/2010

Company C, New York, USA

Marketing Manager 4/2002 - 3/2004

Other Experience:

Company C, New York, USA

Administration Manager 4/2001 - 3/2002

In this case, the line items are unchanged, but their order is changed.  The idea here is to highlight a certain strain of working experience that is particularly useful for the position being applied for.  In this case, one might assume the person is aiming for a role related to Strategic Consulting. The gap in experience is de-emphasized, as are any switches between functions, because the jobs are not listed in a chronological order. In a skill-based resume, the person may or may not choose to list the dates next to each position. Instead, the focus is on the experience gained within each area.  

2) Why is a Chronological Resume Preferable?

A) It's clear and complete.

Reader often scan the dates to see if gaps exist. I think it's a natural reaction to a resume, I have certainly done this for the hundreds (thousands?) of resumes I have scanned in my career. The first test of a resume is that it is complete, and documents your background and progress. It does not need to include everything - but at the least you should aim to account for all of your time. There is no problem with having a gap between jobs, or between experiences - as long as it is explained somewhere in the resume.  Note as well that if Job A finished on May 11, 2006, and Job B began on June 27, 2006, I would not consider this a gap at all:

Job B 6/2006 - x/200x

Job A x/200x - 5/2006

There is no gap here that the resume needs to address.

A skill-based resume is often chosen when there is a break in the working experience, or a period of time that is difficult to explain or wholly irrelevant to the position you are applying for.  The problem here is that the reader of the resume is most likely aware of this strategy. So, in essence, it backfires, as the skill-based resume may cause the reader to attempt to find a problem, solely because of the choice of the format in which it was written. If a recruiter, employer, or school admissions officer is only going to give your resume 1-3 minutes anyways, it would be advisable that this time is spent admiring accomplishments, not hunting for disasters. This is the case whether your resume ultimately has chronological gaps or not. 

B) It better shows career progress.

The younger you are, the more important this is.  In any case, most people's career arcs upward in responsibility and accomplishment, and you should use a chronological resume to highlight your own arc as best as possible. By breaking up your experience in other ways, the overall impact of the growth of your responsibility is harder to see. If your resume is chronological, but you worry that the progression of your career is hard to see, than you may not be emphasizing the right responsibilities or accomplishments in your career descriptions and bullet points.

C) The skills can be summarized effectively elsewhere.

Rarely is a resume meant to speak for itself. Rather it is an introduction, and comes along with an essay (school application) or cover letter (job application). The essay or cover letter is a better place to note that you have "over 8 years of experience in strategic consulting". Such headlines are rarely effective on a resume. So, instead of making a skill-based resume, consider a chronological one and be sure to include a cover letter or description in the essay as to what choices you have made, what skills you have gained, and how they are important to the job you are applying for, or the program you want to enter and future goals you aim to achieve.

Have you thought about the contents of your resume today?

John Couke

john.couke@gmail.com

Delicious Bookmarks

So far in the short life of this blog, one of the most popular ways in which my readers have found me is through my collection of bookmarks at delicious.com.  

I have been an avid collector of bookmarks since about 2005, and in particular I use delicious (as well as pinboard more recently) to sort my bookmarks and allow for easy retrieval.  As this collection has grown so has its usefulness. Currently, I have over 14,000 bookmarks (!) to a variety of topics that you may find useful, including resume design and preparation, interview questions and preparation, employment, admissions, LLM programs, MBA programs and even undergraduate programs.  In addition to this, I have school-specific bookmarks for many schools including Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg and countless others.  

The internet is, as we all know, a great place to research. If you are interested in learning about any of these topics above, or others such as being waitlisted, letters of recommendation, visiting campus, or even determining fit with programs, I'd suggest you start with my delicious bookmarks, scroll through the tags until you find ones interesting to you, and start your search there.

Good luck with your research!

John Couke
john.couke@gmail.com

Tips on Organizing a Strong Resume

One point worth keeping in mind about your resume is the amount of time the reader will spend on the document - typically 1-3 minutes. Given this, layout and readability are both extremely important. A good resume starts in the presentation: how the document is organized and designed, as well as the content you choose to include, and how that is presented. Here are a few things to consider when judging the effectiveness of your own resume.

1. The document must be easy to look at.  For example, if the font is too small, the margins are tiny, and everything is crammed together, your reader will get a bad first impression.  This is especially important because the person reading your resume will likely only give it a minute or two, in total.  So it is vitally important to avoid having a bad impression.  Here is a small checklist to keep in mind:

a) Use a typical font, such as Times New Roman 10.5 or 11.

b) Use margins of between 10mm to 15mm all the way around, for instance using 10mm for the top and bottom, and then 15mm for the left and right sides. This will ensure your document has some white space in the margins and is centered properly on the page.

c) Ensure the paper setting is correct: for documents going to the US or Canada, use "letter-sized", and for outside the US, use "A4". Here is a page on betweenborders.com that explains the difference.  Even though many schools these days have computerized their application reading process, it is still worthwhile to be aware of the difference. 

d) Decide on line settings that will make your bullet points readable, and avoid crunching lines together in order to fit too much onto one page.  If you are using Microsoft Word, under "home" go to "line spacing options". Set it at "exactly" and at a setting between 12pt, 13pt or 14pt.  In addition, after each bullet point have a small margin, in order to ensure each bullet is separated nicely.  Experiment with these settings until you have arrived at the setting that makes your resume look best: not too packed together, and with a small bit of space between each bullet point.

2. Keep it to 1 page (see my previous post on why this is best) by selecting what to focus on rather than including everything you've ever done! When deciding, ask yourself what skills you possess that are most relevant to your future - either skills that demonstrate your ability to succeed at graduate school, or skills that are relevant to your future goals. What skills that you possess will an admissions officer or future employer value? Highlight your relevant skills in the bullet points of your resume. 

3. Avoid too much personal information (marital status, age, number of children, height, weight etc) unless requested. Such information can be distracting because it is not what your reader will be expecting when they review your document - so be sure to manage their expectations effectively.

4. Avoid long lists of adjectives like "dedicated team player" and other such fluff. These are not valuable additions to a resume, and are better included elsewhere. For instance for a job applicant, your personal description of characteristics relevant to the job to which you are applying could be in the cover letter.  And for grad school applicants, such concepts are hopefully to be found in your recommendation letters.

5. Include a short list of personal activities in the additional section. In terms of what to choose, this is the criteria I consider: 

a) The activity should demonstrate something appealing about you.

b) You can show a strong time commitment to the activity.

c) The content should be recent.

d) The content is strategic.  

If the activity fits all three criteria, then certainly include it.  For instance if you have been a starting member of a community basketball team for the past 1.5 years and you play twice a month, this is worthy of inclusion. You can highlight team and/or leadership experience, and also you have shown dedication to the activity.  It is easy to see how an activity that does not meet all three criteria would not be worth including: a 2-hour volunteer experience in 1994 that was never repeated is probably not worth fitting on your page, especially if you have more recent and significant experiences.

In terms of point d), some activities people do regularly are just not worth including in the resume, even if they fit a) b) and c). Many people read hundreds of books, or watch hundreds of movies, for instance.  However interesting such activities are, they should not typically be included in your resume, because they don't say anything interesting about you.

6. Make sure each individual bullet point, no matter what section it is in, is clear, impressive and impactful.

7. Have someone whose opinion you trust read your resume and give you feedback on it. It can be difficult to assess the effectiveness of your own work.

Steps 2, 6, and 7 will likely require assistance, so do consult with a professional to ensure your resume is working as effectively as possible. Finally, be sure to read carefully the instructions provided by the school you are applying to, or the recruiter or company to whom you will send your resume.  There may be additional instructions, including the number of lines to use, or other sections that may be requested such as international experience or situation-specific information.  Show that you may taken the time to understand their specifications and reflect them the version of your resume you send to them.

John Couke
john.couke@gmail.com

On the Importance of Research and Fit

Moving on to grad school or a new job is a big transition in life, and to make the changeover to your new situation as smooth as possible it helps if you are very familiar with where you are going. This is important at all levels: from choosing the right school or company to target in the first place, to demonstrating how you can fit in and contribute to their cultures and systems during your interview.

So..  do research!  For jobs, that means getting a feel for who works there, what the company does, what it sells, and how it differentiates itself from the competition.  For schools, it means understanding (among other things) how its culture and curriculum are different from other programs.  Not only are individual MBA programs very different from one another, but also they are constantly evolving to the forces around them. On that last note, here are a few places to get you started on reading about how the MBA curriculum at different schools is unique and evolving.  

1. Harvard Business School

Field of Dreams: Harvard Business School reinvents its MBA Course

This Economist article highlights the addition to HBS of a new practical learning opportunity, called FIELD (Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development). 

2. UCLA Anderson

UCLA Anderson School of Management Announces new MBA Curriculum

This article demonstrates the importance of having clear career goals BEFORE applying to the program, as there is now greater emphasis on the internship, and how it will lead you to achieve that short-term goal upon graduating. If you don't know what you want to do, how can you choose an internship that will give you meaningful experience? This is something applicants should consider as they write their goals essay.

Here are some additional details from the UCLA Anderson MBA Admissions Blog.

3. Carnegie Mellon Tepper

Tepper School Introduces new MBA Curriculum

According to this article, there will be a greater emphasis on developing analytical decision-making ability and preparing students for the workforce.

Clear Admit offers a writeup of CMU's changes here with additional links.

4. Georgetown McDonough

New MBA Curriculum Prepares Global, Innovative, Principled Leaders

The article states that, "From the very start of the program, the new curriculum is filled with both classroom and experiential learning that will develop Georgetown McDonough students into innovative, principled, and entrepreneurial leaders with a global perspective to make a substantial impact on business and society."

These are important attributes Georgetown is looking to instill in its students. Of course, if you possess such skills (like the ability to drive innovation or bring an entrepreneurial view to a problem) as an applicant and can highlight them in your application, than this could wok in your favor. The same applies to all schools above.  Show in your application that you already possess some of the attributes they are looking for, and that you can fit in to the culture they currently offer, or want.

I have these and other links at my delicious page. Not everything is related to your next steps, but there are lots of links to topics such as MBA, LLM, employment, the interview, and even the topic of fit.

John Couke
john.couke@gmail.com

The First Post

Hello, and welcome to my new blog. I intend to make this blog relevant for those interested in taking the next step; whether it be applying for an MBA, LLM or other graduate degree, or starting the process towards a new career. I will be posting about events, opportunities, ideas, people, as well as my own opinions on a range of topics related to both education and employment.

The start of this blog coincides with my own next step from one phase of my career to the next, a step that I am sure will be an interesting one.  I live in Tokyo, but aim to write to an audience based not only in Japan but all over the world.


John Couke
john.couke@gmail.com