Resume Fun!!

Hey all,
Just started to chalk out my resume yesterday and I discovered that i totally suck at it. Since I have never made a resume in my life, (since I've never job hunted) I discovered that it is increasingly difficult to make your resume for the first time (and that too for B-Skool purposes..... would u believe my hard luck...... :( )

The first draft that i wrote was a total of two pages detailing my responsibilities and accomplishments in a tiny enough font. I used Calibri 10......... Still two pages......

I have read Montauk and MBA Game Plan. And if their advice is any yardstick to follow, adcom do not spend more than a minute scanning the resume. By this I can guage that a resume should have less complicated language and business speak. It should also not lose it's visual appeal and stick to showing your key strengths at the same time besides being strictly confined to one page and still not being overly crammed and looking more black than white. Just picture the Adcom officer reading hundereds aplication...... blah blah blah......... :)

When people write about how tired adcom officers are, I hate it. I hate it even more when I gauge and realize the correctness of their claims. So, weather I like or not, it's is not a good idea to mess around with the mood of an adm. officer by boring her with details.

So I took a long hard look at my resume and saw that I've repeatedly said the same very things in different, fancier vocablary. I began trimming but could not get it below one & a half pages without cutting some of my details.

Still working on it, have seen many resume teplates and I dont know which to choose. Of the few people who read my blog, I would like to strike an active discussion on pros and cons of various formats, level of detail they would give in their resumes and many other resume related talk..... We can help each other by discussing this issue out......... Anybody game???? Peace.....

P.S. : I would really find it helpful and be grateful if someone posted (or linked) the actual resume book of any school.

Took the TOEFL Date.... Now Worried

Hey ppl,
I took the TOEFL date yesterday....... So, my T-day is 12 JULY....... I think I went a bit overboard with all the GMAT confidence bubbling up in me and I took a date less than a month away........ And now I am worried.......

Is this much time sufficient to prepare well for TOEFL?? Various blogs and forums tend to think so, but I shall not follow them blindly. Oh God..... I m so kicking myself for taking a date so soon...... Since I only want a super score......... nothing less than a 109 will do........ 109 being the cut-off for HBS, thats why the affinity for this magical number.........

Shall begin my prep on the morrow........ Anyone has any ideas about how to go on hunting this one??? I've downloaded Longman and Kaplan CD's...... But, are they suffiecient??? We'll see...

Waiting to listen for inputs from anyone who's "Been there, Done that" with the TOEFL..... Peace

School shortlisting

Hey ppl,
Things are now starting to gather a bit of air......... won't call it "steam" yet......... schools have started to come out with deadlines and I guess the questions are not far behind. The schools which have come up with deadlines, as of today, are: HBS, Stanford, Haas, MIT, Michigan, UNC. Did I miss anyone?? If so, I'm terribly sorry for my lack of awareness. :)

Actually waiting for the questions to appear is another of my mind's genius plan to procrastinate. Actually I've noted that the core questions don't change over time for any school, since they are always looking for the same type of qualities in a person. So, if I wanted, I could have started to work on questions right away, now that I've somewhat finalized my schools. But no, I'll not do it. I'll probably put 'em off more and may even not do 'em when the questions actually come out (like in HBS's case). But then, you may wonder, when am I gonna do them??? This is THE question which evades even the almighty. :D

And did I say I finalized the schools?? Yes, I had a personal deadline to finalize them roughly by the end of May, and I'm glad to tell you, I totally screwed up on my own personal deadlines....... a whooping 10 days late......

O.K. Since I'm the official "Ultimate Cut-Copy-Paste" guy of the Fall-'09 blogging community (any challengers????), I'll ctrlC + ctrlV from my "thought document", which I created as I was pondering over why I want to do an MBA and what do I want from it. Here is the "what do I want from it" part of the document. (Pl. ignore the caps, I write my personal docs in caps....... they look cooler :D )

1) PRESTIGE: IT MEANS ONLY THE TOP 20. IT MAKES SENSE TO ME TO GO ONLY TO THE TOP....... EITHER GET AN ADMIT THERE OR DONT GO AT ALL.
2) SHOULD BE A RENOWNED GENERAL MANAGEMENT FOCUS……… (OR ENTREPRENUERIAL FOCUS OR MANUFACTURING FOCUS…OR OPERATIONS FOCUS…….. I DON’T KNOW THIS VERY WELL :( )
3) THE PROGRAM SHOULD BE COLLABRATIVE, NOT COMPETITIVE TO FACILITATE HEALTHY EXCHANGE OF IDEAS
4) NON DISCLOSURE OF GRADES WHICH MEANS MORE FOCUS ON KNOWLEDGE GAINING AND LESS OF MUGGING…….
5) SHOULD PROVIDE AMPLE FUNDING OPTIONS
6) ALUMNI SHOULD BE POWERFUL AND HELPFUL……
7) MOST STUDENTS SHOULD BE OUT OF STATE TO DISCOURAGE THE COMMUTER CULTURE……. SO THAT IT FACILITATES PEER-2-PEER CONTACT……
8) AVG. AGE SHOULD BE LESS THAN 29.
9) SHOULDN’T BE A NERDY CULTURE (HAVE STUDIED 4 YEARS OF ENGG. AROUND NERDS)……I HATE IT

I want to apply to 6 schools: 2 in the Ultra Elite, 3 in the Elite and one in the Near Elite. (To see full classification of schools based on cluster system see Hjort's Classification on GMATClub)
Plus, I don't want my app. to be concentrated only in the U.S. I mean I'll have 3 yrs. Wrk Ex. on matriculation, so might as welllook up some European programs as well. They are shorter, cheaper and some have gr8 reputation.

So, I started to shortlist and strike schools out of the top 20. Every school had some weakness and some strengths. I noted all of these. Went on eliminating until I was left with 10. It looked like this:

Tier 1 :
HBS, Wharton, Kellogg
Tier 2:
Duke, Darden, UCLA, Tuck, Ross
Tier 3:
McCombs, Emory

I figured, that I'll chose only 1 from tier 1 (since I figured that I could be focusseed only on one school), the other spot would be given away to a Euro-school (Insead, Oxford or LBS). 3 from tier 2, and 1 from tier 3.
The first choice was relatively easy. Chose HBS. It is by far the school that I've daydreamed about the most. I'd absolutely love to get to that magical place. Among the Euros, I easily eliminated INSEAD, sinceI stand a very slim chance due to non-international experience. I eliminated LBS, since Oxford looks much stronger for entreprenuership and has the benefits f the greater university.

The second choice was the most difficult. UCLA was a definite in leaving 2 spots. I was torn between my choices. After much thinking and researching, I eliminated Tuck, since, the togetherness at Tuck is to an extreme level. I mean, if you look at it, Hanover supposedly has no life other than Tuck and due to it's small class size, ppl are so bumping into each other everytime that it starts getting too much really fast........ (heard it from an alumni somewhere).
Got down to Duke, Darden, and Ross. I'm still very confused between these three. But chose Duke and Darden over Ross somewhat. Ross prefers older candidates more than these two.

Now on to3rd tier. This was more of a safety zone. i visited the sites and consulted the brochures and talked to people and found Austin to be a much better fit for me. So, Austin it is.....

So, the final list looks like this:
HBS
Oxford
UCLA
Duke
Darden
Texas
Ross (A maybe, still wondering......)

Take care guys, do share your insights........... peace.......