These are some tips for demonstrating growth in a flat organization (where there is no real ladder to climb).
1. In your MBA resume bullet points, when you summarize accomplishments/experiences, order them consecutively and put dates in parentheses before or after the point. This way, if you have four years with a particular title, you can show progress within that time. Also use details to highlight growth.
There will be even more opportunities in your essays to show your growth within a flat organization. The most obvious is when you are asked (typically in a goals essay) to summarize your career progress. Whether or not you have this particular question, look for a place early on in the set of essays to add a sentence explicitly describing the situation, along the lines of, “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, ideally one that demonstrates your progress relative to accomplished colleagues, e.g., “I am the only one among my 10 peers 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 to them (don’t just assume they’ll understand why it matters).
In the application form you will have to fill in information about your roles and positions. Apply the same principles noted above to these sections, to the extent possible.
What do you guys think of these tips? Are there any well known firms which follow a flat organization, and does this work better than those with a labeled management? I think structured organizations are better just because they give each employer something to aspire to.
