How to Make an Executive MBA Program Want You

If you’ve been following our Executive MBA admissions strategy series, you read our suggestions on how to rock the info session. Your key task during the info session is to ask the admissions officer if you can send her your resume’ to review. Now, you’re going to learn how to make an Executive MBA program “want” you.

The day after the info session…

Email your resume’!

This small, proactive step demonstrates your eagerness, organizational skills, and all-around ability to do what you say you’re going to do. We do not recommend sending it as soon as you get home from the info session because that seems desperate.

Hopefully, you’ve rebuilt your resume’ (based on our advice) with the knowledge that you would send it the day after the info session. Your resume’ is now ready to fire off with a professional, yet cool email:

Hi Lily, it was a pleasure to meet you yesterday. As promised, I have attached my resume’ for your review. Please let me know if there are any areas I need to emphasize or explain for the application process. Thank you.

Short, simple, and no cover letter necessary.

Follow Up on Your Follow Up

Hopefully, this email will be a continuation of the rapport you established at the info session. If you do not receive a response from the admissions officer after 3 or 4 days, email her again to check. Do not just forward the first email with no message in the body (I have seen people do this and it appears rude).

If there are formal channels for resume’ submittal, such as an online form, follow those channels FIRST, then send an email to the admissions officer letting them know you submitted your resume’.

They Want You!

Using the resume’ review as the basis for Executive MBA admission strategy accomplishes several goals:

1. You receive informal feedback on your profile and fit so you can improve your resume’ BEFORE you apply.

2. You can gain insight into what aspects to emphasize or explain in your application essays.

3. Now that the “door is open,” you can ask other questions, such as “What Executive Assessment score are you looking for?”

4. Admissions officers will start “talking about you” to their colleagues, the program director, and to professors. You want your name to come up in conversations because it makes recruiters more likely to lobby on your behalf (if you have a low undergraduate GPA or GMAT/EA score).

5. Admission officers can start imagining how you would “fit” in the program and how they could use you for recruiting purposes. This point may seem nefarious but recruiters NEED alumni that will show up to events. Your interesting profile and presence is a benefit to them.

Other Ways to Interact

After you have attended an info session and had your resume’ reviewed, you can interact with the program and admissions officers in other ways. Many Executive MBA programs offer the following opportunities to prospective students:

• Sit in on a class: An excellent opportunity to talk with current students and determine if you can match the pace of the class given your academic background. Recommended if you have time, but not essential.
• Meet with a faculty member: Not recommended unless there is something very specific you are interested in studying and want feedback from a professor.
• Schedule a meeting with the EMBA Program Director: Not recommended unless you have very specific questions about the program that cannot be answered by admissions officers. I do not recommend scheduling a meeting that exposes your weaknesses because your concerns may not be the same as those of the department.

You can ask for these opportunities even if there is no formal offering or channel at your chosen EMBA program.

But first, be sure to:

Apply at the right time

Rebuild your resume’

Attend an info session

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