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Miriam Berlin: J asks, “How much overlap should there be between my resume and essays? Should I try to cover every major point mentioned in my resume in my essays?”
Linda Abraham: The resume is a snapshot and the essays are deep dives. So you definitely do not need to cover every major point made in your resume. That is definitely unnecessary and probably a really bad idea because that would make your essays resumes in prose and prevent your essays from supplementing and complementing your resume. If you think of your application as a great big jigsaw puzzle with every element coming together to clarify the picture of you that is being presented in the application, you realize that you don’t want things to duplicate. Obviously your resume provides context, it provides a certain chronology, but it doesn’t go into much depth—it can’t.
Your essays are for providing depth. And occasionally, depending upon the question and your particular experiences, the essays may go into areas of your life simply not covered in a professional resume. So do not in any way shape or form feel compelled to explore every major point in your resume. That is definitely not necessary. Use your essays to go much deeper into really important points on the most important points on your resume to provide your motivations, to provide lessons learned, and to go into greater depth. But don’t have one duplicate the other.
For the full transcript, please view the Be Smart MBA Admissions Q&A transcript or listen to the audio file. You can also learn more about how to construct a strong MBA resume and winning application essays by visiting MBA Resume 101 and our collection of sample MBA essays.
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