Think of Your Resume Like a Movie Trailer, Advises UM Ross Admissions Director

“For me, the resume is just as important as your essays,” Soojin Kwon, admissions director at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, recently wrote on her blog. Wednesday, October 10th is the round one deadline, so there’s no time like the present to weigh how your resume stacks up against her expectations.

Here are the three tips she passed on to applicants:

1. A good resume takes time.

“I find that many applicants don’t take enough care with their resumes,” Kwon said, perhaps dashing off  something that might suffice if you were applying for a job in your industry. This is yet another chance to tell your story, but it most be done with brevity and in a way that engages the reader. No industry jargon, please! “It should be clear and concise, yet detailed enough to give us an idea of your skills, experiences and interests,” Kwon explained.

2. Quality trumps quantity.

For applicants concerned their resume is on the thin side, Kwon stressed that the admissions committee is looking not at the number of years worked but on the quality of that professional experience. Ross wants to see what skills you’ve gained and the contributions you’ve made.

3. Fear not, ye poets!

For UM Ross, like most top business schools, the beauty of creating a diverse class comes from pulling together compelling candidates from all sorts of undergraduate backgrounds—which includes those from liberal arts or other such “non-business” degrees. Class discussions would fizzle pretty quickly if everyone in the group came from just one or two industries or majors.