Grenoble École de Management has run its own AST1 and AST2 parallel admission competitive exams since 2022-2023, with a jury that evaluates an academic file alongside written tests and an oral interview. A poorly structured resume can cost points before the oral even begins, on a competitive exam where the gap between two candidates often comes down to very little.
What the GEM jury evaluates
The Grenoble EM jury reviews the application file looking for a coherent path rather than a stack of lines. According to the official AST program terms published by Grenoble École de Management 🔗, AST1 candidates (Bac+2 level) must submit a TAGE 2 score, while AST2 candidates (Bac+3 and above) are evaluated on a TAGE MAGE score, in both cases alongside an English test (TOEFL, TOEIC, or IELTS).
Beyond test scores, which remain an important quantitative filter, the jury is trying to understand why you're targeting Grenoble EM specifically - its focus on tech and management innovation, its finance and data specializations - rather than an interchangeable business school. A file that mentions nothing specific to the school comes across as a backup application rather than a deliberate choice.
Structuring your academic resume
The academic resume for GEM should fit on a single page and follow a logic built for fast reading:
- Header: name, contact details, LinkedIn.
- Education: preparatory class or degree program followed, specialization, honors and ranking where relevant, with the TAGE 2 or TAGE MAGE score and the language test score as soon as they're available - these numbers are often the first thing the jury scans for.
- Professional experience: internships, student jobs, leadership roles in student associations, always described with a measurable outcome rather than a simple list of tasks.
- Digital skills and languages: real proficiency levels rather than vague mentions, particularly for data and digital tools, consistent with the school's tech positioning.
- Interests: only if they add genuine depth to the profile.
Registration for the exam is done directly through the dedicated platform accessible from the school's website, with an application deadline that should be checked each year since dates shift from one session to the next.
Highlighting internships and digital skills
For an AST candidate targeting GEM, every experience should answer a simple question: what does this demonstrate for a future student at a management school focused on tech and innovation? A management control internship, a digital marketing internship, or even a role in a student association can be highlighted if it's described with quantified results rather than a generic mission description.
Digital skills deserve particular attention in this specific application: proficiency with a data visualization tool, basic programming knowledge, managing a digital project for a student association - these elements resonate directly with the school's positioning and deserve to be featured rather than pushed to the bottom of the resume.
💡 Learn more: our guide on the AST application file details all the documents to gather before the application deadline, beyond the resume alone.
Annotated resume example
A candidate with a BUT in Business Management and Administration with a management control internship could phrase their experience like this: "Management control internship, [Company], 4 months - Automated a budget tracking dashboard in Excel/Power BI, cutting monthly reporting production time by 25% across 12 cost centers." This phrasing quantifies the impact and highlights a concrete digital skill, two elements that speak directly to the GEM jury.
For the education section, rather than simply writing "BUT GEA," specify the core subjects covered (management control, corporate finance, information systems) and any graded academic project that demonstrates an interest in management and digital tools.
📊 If you're still deciding which competitive exam to prioritize, our comparison of Passerelle, Ecricome, Access, Advance: which exam to choose helps you focus your preparation effort based on your profile.
Mistakes to fix before submitting
- A resume longer than one page: in parallel admission, conciseness remains a signal of mastery as much as a format constraint.
- Test scores missing or buried in a paragraph: TAGE 2, TAGE MAGE, and the language score should be immediately visible, not mentioned in passing.
- No mention specific to Grenoble EM: a file that could be sent to any school doesn't convince a jury that reads hundreds of similar applications every year.
- Underplayed digital skills: for an exam specific to a school positioned around tech, this dimension deserves dedicated treatment.
- Cluttered formatting: multiple columns, mixed fonts, or loud colors hurt readability, which always takes priority over graphic originality.
⚠️ Watch out: the exact terms of the competitive exam (submission dates, application fees, oral exams) change every year. Always check the current information on Grenoble EM's official admission on credentials page 🔗 before finalizing your application.
Building an academic resume that fits on one page, while highlighting both a test score and concrete digital skills, takes time that many AST candidates don't have during exam revision season. FinanceCV lets you focus on the content of your file while the tool automatically handles formatting compatible with the requirements of parallel admission juries.
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