How do you demonstrate advancement and growth if you work in a flat organization? After all, your career progress will be compared to that of other candidates who have received traditional promotions with clearly delineated, expanded responsibilities. In a flat organization, you might hold the same title – possibly vague or unimpressive – for years, even though your expertise and impact grow.
If you find yourself in this situation, the burden is on you to clarify the circumstances in your MBA application. Here are some ways you could do so:
- In your MBA resume bullet points, when you summarize your accomplishments/experiences, order them consecutively (starting with the most recent), and put dates in parentheses before or after each point. This way, you can show progress, even if you have worked for multiple years with the same title. You can also use details to highlight growth. If the dollar scope of your projects has increased over time, quantify this development. Similarly, if you initially led three-member teams and now lead ten-member cross-functional teams, spell out that growth. If you took on a new responsibility, describe it in a bullet point with the date (e.g., “Began managing relationships with clients up to $500K in 2020”). The key is to look at your experiences and accomplishments and ask, “How can I portray these elements in a way that reveals my professional growth?”
- You will have even more opportunities to show your growth within a flat organization in your essays. Look for a place early on in one of your essays where you can add a sentence that explicitly describes your situation: “My employer, ABC Corp., is a flat organization, with no management ladder between associate and senior management. Nevertheless, in my three years as TITLE, I have gone from ABC to XYZ.” Provide examples that demonstrate your progress relative to that of accomplished colleagues (e.g., “I am the only one on my ten-person team to work directly on-site with our overseas clients and to accompany senior managers on sales visits to China”).
- Ask your recommenders to address this issue directly and explain why (don’t just assume they’ll understand why it matters).
- When you fill in information about your roles and positions in the application form, apply the principles we have noted here to these sections to the extent possible.
I have one final suggestion. Don’t assume a subtle read. Make your point more than once, in different ways, to ensure that the admissions reader gets it.
By Natalie Grinblatt, a former admissions dean/director at three top business schools. Natalie has reviewed more than 70,000 applications, interviewed more than 2,500 candidates, and trained nearly 700 admissions directors and alumni volunteers to select outstanding candidates for admission. Her clients gain admission to top programs, including those at Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Cornell, Columbia, Berkeley, Chicago, Northwestern, and NYU. Natalie holds an MBA from Michigan Ross. Want Natalie to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!
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