The Complete Guidebook To Getting A Perfect MBA Recommendation Letter - Part I
I think it is fair to say that applicants commonly think that getting that stellar CEO’s stamp on the recommendation letter is the golden ticket to Harvard. Nevermind that the applicant barely managed to have a 1:1 with the CEO in their career.
Another interesting story is of applicants with multiple job histories: They struggle to decide who to ask for a recommendation – Current Vs. Previous Managers/Employers.
Finally, there is the “Entrepreneur” applicant who always managed employees but never had to report to anyone. So who is eligible to write a recommendation about them?
Questions, thoughts, and confusions as the above are something that all of us applicants go through at some point in our MBA applications. In this new 2-part recommendation strategy series, I will try to help you clarify a lot of these doubts and develop the strategy for creating those “Winning Recommendation Letters”.
This is how the plan is for the 2 part series. We will cover Part I in this blog
Part I: Clarify common confusions, questions, and doubts
Part II: Develop a 4-Phase Recommendation Strategy
Alright so let's go ahead and clarify a few common doubts
“Can I write my recommendations”
In short an Absolute No! You cannot write your recommendation nor should you think about writing for the following reasons
It is unethical
It is impractical – You’re supposed to give the official work email of your recommenders. Now assuming that they agree to you writing on their behalf, I would argue this is a sure shot fail. You will be writing extensively in the application and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the commonalities between the recommendation letters and the essays.
“I am an Entrepreneur – Who should I ask for a recommendation?”
You’re indeed the boss of your company however big or small but there will be people who know you deeply enough in a professional context to write about your strengths and weaknesses.
Advisors/Investors – These will be a great set of stakeholders who can authentically write about your personality and your struggles founding the organization. Make sure that the advisors or investors know you for a significant period as that will give them enough context to fully paint your personality
Clients – If you have a business, you have a client. Can you reach out to a long-standing client of yours who has had a long-standing business relationship with you? You got a winner here
Suppliers/Vendors – Another innovative way is to talk to people who provide services to you. Chances are that some of them have closely engaged with you in the past
Senior members – These include your co-founders or senior members who can talk about your leadership skills as well as highlight areas of improvement
“I’m afraid the person who can recommend me is not in a senior enough management position as a CEO? Will that decrease my chances”
This is the age-old debate when choosing the recommenders: Should I go for Bigger Title or for someone who knows me well? Another common tactic is to choose a recommender who’s an alum of the target school even if the person is not well suited to write the personal recommendation.
So what to do?
The following is our recommendation on how to choose recommenders
Prioritize the quality of professional relationship over the title
Choose someone who you have worked for a long period
Choose someone who can write about both your strengths and weaknesses
Choose someone who can make the time commitment to work through the whole recommendation process for you
Choose someone who can make the letter more personal and authentic
Remember that a personal and authentic recommendation will always score your more points than a generic letter from the CEO of the organization.
“How do I know what my recommenders write? What if they write something poor about me?”
While we say that writing your recommendation is a strict no-no what is okay to do is control your recommendation. Remember that the recommendation is crucial evidence of your abilities and competence that merit an admission. It is possible that even with a great recommender you might be undone by a poor or inconsistent recommendation letter. Let me explain!
Poor recommendation letter: Your recommender must be able to translate all their ideas to articulately worded essays. Grammatical mistakes, meandering thoughts, and lazy writing will do a great injustice to what could have been a stellar recommendation
Inconsistent recommendation letter: You are projecting a persona in your applications. You are telling me about the story of you and writing about your triumphs and failures. The recommendation letters are a testament to those stories. If however, your essays convey that your main strength is tenacity while the recommendation letters convey a portrait of someone who needs more determination then it will only serve to confuse the reader.
“My recommender is a very busy person and I don’t know if they can commit to finishing it”
Well then don’t choose someone busy. As we said before it will take a significant time for your recommender to write a well-written draft. You can almost budget in 1 month from the time you ask your recommenders to when they complete the process. Go for someone willing to invest their time and effort in helping you out with the process. It’s possible that recommenders who have an MBA be more sensitive to your career aspirations and think that it will be worthwhile for you to get an education.
In the next article, we will delve deeper into designing the 4-Phase strategy for developing the winning recommendation letter for you.
Have a question? Drop-in your comments!