Hi,
I have a question: can I ask my retired mentor to write me a LOR instead of my direct boss? My situation is a big strange. I am an engineer, but my manager is a business person who knows little about what I am doing. (This is weird as our company started to use pure business people to manage engineering department.) So I am thinking to ask my mentor to write me a LOR because he kinda supervised me and really knows me well in terms of day to day work and my leadership in handling projects, but he has recently retired and I don't have a better option so far. Could you share with me your opinions? Thanks in advance!
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ask a retired employee to write my LOR?
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Personal MBA Coach
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You will likely need at least LORs so who are you considering for your other one? All things being equal, it is much better to have a current boss write your letter than a mentor. If you don't have your boss write the letter, there should be a reason (i.e. they don't know you are applying to school, you worked for a longer period of time with a former boss, etc.) Does your boss love you? Would s/he WANT to write a great letter?
A lot of the content of the letter can be suggested by you so unless your boss is completely hands off, I wouldn't worry about s/he not understanding what you do. Take my advice with a grain of salt as I'm not at your company, but most business executives who manage engineers know enough to write a good letter, provided you remind them of your key accomplishments.
Happy to discuss this and any other questions you have in more detail. Good luck.
A lot of the content of the letter can be suggested by you so unless your boss is completely hands off, I wouldn't worry about s/he not understanding what you do. Take my advice with a grain of salt as I'm not at your company, but most business executives who manage engineers know enough to write a good letter, provided you remind them of your key accomplishments.
Happy to discuss this and any other questions you have in more detail. Good luck.
Scott Edinburgh
Founder, Personal MBA Coach
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Founder, Personal MBA Coach
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CriticalSquareMBA
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Hi there!
Great question. It's unfortunate that your boss isn't as in tune to your day-to-day activities. However, I think it's worth asking - has he written an MBA LOR before? Does he have an MBA himself? If so, you might be better off having him write you one after all (unless he'll have an issue with you applying to get your MBA).
If, after careful consideration, you strongly believe he's not the right person to write your LOR, then you need to really think about who your next best option is. For the individual you're proposing, how long has it been since you worked with him? If it's been too long, it may not make sense for him to write it. The fact that he's retired isn't exactly a red flag, but to give you a true answer, I'd have to learn a lot more about your other answers as this depends on a whole host of different factors. Also, just because the business minded guy doesn't know EXACTLY what you do isn't a bad thing. He can talk about the work you do in a broader company / impact setting. That can be good too!
If you need a hand prepping your recommenders or reviewing what they're submitting, let's chat (sign up here!) and figure that out!
Bhavik
Great question. It's unfortunate that your boss isn't as in tune to your day-to-day activities. However, I think it's worth asking - has he written an MBA LOR before? Does he have an MBA himself? If so, you might be better off having him write you one after all (unless he'll have an issue with you applying to get your MBA).
If, after careful consideration, you strongly believe he's not the right person to write your LOR, then you need to really think about who your next best option is. For the individual you're proposing, how long has it been since you worked with him? If it's been too long, it may not make sense for him to write it. The fact that he's retired isn't exactly a red flag, but to give you a true answer, I'd have to learn a lot more about your other answers as this depends on a whole host of different factors. Also, just because the business minded guy doesn't know EXACTLY what you do isn't a bad thing. He can talk about the work you do in a broader company / impact setting. That can be good too!
If you need a hand prepping your recommenders or reviewing what they're submitting, let's chat (sign up here!) and figure that out!
Bhavik
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