I used to teach a summer seminar to aspiring MBA, law school, and college students about how to write a powerful personal statement. While transitioning my material to a new laptop, I recently discovered my old notes on “Twenty Quick Tips for a Great Personal...

In a recent discussion I had with Andrea Flores from IE University in Madrid, we talked about the Return on Investment of an MBA. It was a fantastic discussion that allowed us to explore ROI as a broad concept, but I did receive some messages...

In our last video, we talked about how to brainstorm and generate content for your personal statement. This video builds on that exercise, so make sure that you check that out before watching this video! The personal statement is one of the most important -and stressful-...

I often advise my clients to write like a human being, and NOT like a corporate video whose script was written by AI. What does this mean, concretely? Start by eliminating jargon in your personal statement. Using jargon can make a personal statement seem stiff,...

A CV (or curriculum vitae) or resume is a written statement of your educational and professional accomplishments. It's an important facet of your job hunt that may make you stand out from the competition. (1) Customize your CV for the position you're going for: Do your...

  Next week, I’ll be releasing two longer videos with some strategies, tips, and insights on how to write effective diversity statements. For many applicants -especially those from outside the United States- this is the most confusing and opaque part of the application process. How Americans...

  At Gurufi, we help applicants of all backgrounds write powerful and compelling personal statements, but if I had to pick our specialty, it would be helping people with blemishes on their record. Maybe you had a bad first year in college; maybe you got arrested...

Letters of recommendation are hugely important parts of your application. Having a third party assess your skill, talent, experience, accomplishments, potential, and maturity provides admissions committees with valuable data. Unfortunately, because this is an “outsourced” part of the application, many applicants aren’t sufficiently thoughtful about...

Congratulations! You’ve written the first draft of your personal statement. You’ve managed to distill your life, aspirations, and strengths down to a few hundred words, which is no easy thing! But here’s the bad news: you’re just getting started! But, as Ernest Hemingway famously said,...

Graduate school can be deeply fulfilling, put you on a path to a career you love, and allow you to study things that you’re passionate about under the mentorship of people who are genuine experts. But it’s also an intense all-encompassing experience and can be...