Letter of recommendations are part of an application to address two main things in the MBA application process. The first aspect is obviously to have a direct feedback from senior business persons who had a personal business relation with the current candidate and who could, anonymously, provide some influential information in an application. In other words, futures peers (recommenders) will be the best person to judge another on their potentials. “Could it been one of us?” is the main question that recommenders will have to answer for the school.But the second objective is a less obvious one. “Could the candidate able to manage up?” Usually, business leaders are not approachable people with an extremely packed schedule. The question for candidate will be to first identify the potential recommender, then to ask (and sometime this situation is tricky), to communicate, to help and finally to manage their deliverable. This difficult tasks, while being in a weak position, will help to asses how one candidate can influence powerful business leaders on a tight deadline.
Don’t be foolish and think that bad recommendations can not impact your profile, because they do impact!
Who should I ask my recommendations from?
Don't get a Name from a Brand Name Company. There's nothing wrong with having a recommendation from Jack Welch himself, but only if he really knows you personally. The most common mistake applicants make with respect to the letter of recommendation is getting one from a hotshot at work or from a brand name. The admissions people are not impressed by your boss's boss's title, and they are regularly bombarded by generic recommendations from celebrity business people anyway. So don't send them another. You better find someone who really knows you, can add something to your application, who knows you well, preferably someone who works with you daily and can provide personal insight into your character, leadership skills and way of working. In reality, the job title of that person is meaningless to the admissions committee.
One last obvious tip, pick someone who can write and is a former alumni of the school!
How to ask?
Sometime companies do not judge that an MBA is useful in a professional, and will neither encourage (financially), nor recommend any potential hot shot leader to move out of the company. In that case you better look outside the company for recommendations, or even change company before envisioning applying. The MBA journey can take a long time before receive the welcome email. You might want to have few advice conversations before asking your boss for a recommendation. Annual review is a good place to squeeze the 3 letters career killer acronym to your boss before asking for recommendation.
Having a diverse set of business leader for recommenders is also a very wise decision. That will give the selection committee a long term perspective, a deeper understanding of potentiality and finally give also a wide angle of your personality.
What to ask?
Writing about someone else is never fun, so imagine when you don’t have any incentive of doing so. You better prep your recommender on what you want them to write about. Have your recommender discuss specific details of the jobs you've done. Detailing specifics, a specific common project, will shed more light on your personality than will mouthing vague platitudes "I think he is very good in his job, and could be a great leader one day."
Most will also ask your recommenders to jump through a lot of hoops, filling in grid boxes and writing evaluations. Because recommenders don't usually have time to do that much work, it's a good idea to give them one very comprehensive summary of your self.
The classic question your recommender will face during the process:
- How long and in what context have you known the applicant?
- What are the applicant's principal strengths/weaknesses?
- How does the applicant's performance compare with peers?
- How does he accept constructive feedback?
- Please provide detailed comments on the applicant's degree of self-confidence.
- Comment on the applicant's ability to work with others, including superiors, peers and subordinates.
- Comment on the applicant's maturity.
- Would you enjoy working for the applicant?
- Discuss applicant's leadership abilities and group skills.
- How would you describe the applicant's sense of humor?
- In what ways could the applicant improve professionally?
- In which areas could the applicant exhibit growth or improvement?
- What aspect of the applicant would you most like to change?
- Comment on the applicant's business ethics.
- What do you think motivates the candidate's application to the MBA program?
- What is your overall assessment of the applicant's potential for success as an effective and inspiring upper-level manager?
- Any additional useful information that could help understanding better the candidate (accomplishments, managerial potential or other personal qualities)?
Whatever you do, don't let your recommender question your leadership or communication skills. If he or she completes the grid boxes, make sure he or she gives you high marks in those categories. The whole point of business school is to develop leaders and that means you have to communicate well, and convince people of your point of view.
Should I do it myself?
No.
It's easy to spot writing habits. One can usually tell when a set of essays and an accompanying letter of recommendation have been written by the same person. The voice, the diction, and especially the errors of grammar and style are all unique identifiers. Even though admissions people may not be professional editors, they will catch applicants by noting their unique phraseologies.
Most of you will have to work with your recommenders in crafting your letters, but don't write them wholesale, give a summary with key words you want them to use. At the very least craft your recommendations as a joint project. Even if your recommender would prefer that you write them alone, encourage him or her to do some of the work so the language will assure the reader that someone other than the applicant wrote the recommendation.