Crafting a Solid MBA Recommendation Letter

by Admissionado, Dec 19, 2019

A well-written MBA recommendation letter requires many of the same elements as successful application essays: they must be unique, highlight standout qualities of the applicant, and use examples to SHOW those qualities, rather than simply telling the reader what the writer thinks about the applicant. Whether youve been asked to write a letter, or simply want some tips to pass on to your recommender of choice, weve got you covered.

WHAT IS A LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION?

A letter of recommendation, most simply put, is a chance for the admissions committee to hear from someone who has worked with or supervised the prospective student applying for admission. Think of these letters as your third party character witnesses, vouching for your value and potential, and validating the qualities that hopefully already shine through from your essays, resume, and other application materials.

Most schools will require applicants to submit two recommendation letters. The substance will varysome programs have specific questions they want recommenders to answer, while others leave the choice of content up to the writer. The common theme throughoutallof these letters, however, is that the program wants to hear from someone OTHER than the applicant about the applicants qualities, past performance, how they stack up against peers, and their potential.

WHO CAN WRITE A LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION?

The short answer is almost anyonevery few schools explicitly request that the recommender be in a specific relationship to the applicant. But the reality is thatchoosing a GOOD recommenderalmost certainly leads applicants to a few types of people. Requesting the favor of a written MBA recommendation letter is a process that requires some careful thought.

Choosing your Recommender

The basic requirements for a recommender are an understanding of you and your work, a good relationship, and the ability to express themselves coherently in a written form. Lets break it down:

Your recommender should know you well, and know you within a professional context. This should be obviousin order to recommend you, this person needs to have a solid basis for evaluating your performance and virtues.

They should be a fan of you and your work, generally speaking. You dont have to have a flawless work history with them, but they should have an overall positive picture of you.

The ability to communicate coherently via the written word is the final basic requirement. While a poorly written letter is unlikely to be a negative on your app (the adcom wont blame you if your boss is bad at writing), it doesnt add muchand we dont have room in an MBA application for wasted space. The adcom isnt looking for the next great American novel here, but the letter does need to coherently convey why YOU are a great candidate, and if you doubt this persons ability to do that, even though they support you and know your work, then consider someone else.

Who should I ask?

Given the criteria mentioned above, applicants usually end up with one of the following people, roughly ranked from most to least useful:

Your current supervisor, so long as they have been your supervisor for a long enough period that they have a good sense of who you are and your abilities.

Your most recent supervisor, if you have either recently changed positions or taken a job in which you have no obvious supervisor.

An executive or other work superior above the direct supervisor level that you have worked with directly on more than one occasion, such that they know you and your work.

A mentor, whether formally assigned or informally in a mentor relationship. A workplace mentor is a great person to assess your growth, ability, and potential, particularly if they are in a higher position in the companys hierarchy than you are.

An (internal) customer or lateral colleagueif you are the CEO and founder of your own company, it can be more difficult to figure out who to ask for a recommendation. You may still have a mentor to turn to, but if you are struggling to think of someone above you in the workplace, you can turn to an equal with a good basis for assessing your performance and potential. Ideally, this is someone to whom you are responsible in some way, either a customer for your work product or a member of a different reporting structure who is independent enough not to fear retaliation from you.

ASKING FOR AN MBA RECOMMENDATION LETTER

Once you have settled on your recommenders, you should lose no time in asking them to write the letter. The more time you give them, the better forallinvolvedyou will save both them and yourself the stress of a time crunch.

When you ask someone for a letter of recommendation, remember that you are asking them for a favor. As such, make sure that you have done the legwork of figuring out what you need from themwhat are the requirements of the letter for various programs? How will they submit the letter? What are the deadlines? Do not ask the recommender to do extra work on your behalf.

HOW TO WRITE A LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION

For recommenders WRITING letters of recommendation, or applicants looking for tips to pass on to their recommenders, here are the key steps in the process.

Brainstorm! Spend some time thinking back on your experience with the applicant in question. Think about the good and the bad, recall the projects, meetings, presentations, pitches, initiatives, and any other work-related experiences youve shared. Dont forget to consider feedback youve given them or theyve sought out, and the result of that feedback. Write down a (hopefully long) list of memorable or standout experiences.

After youve made that list, lets make a second list: think about the applicants key qualities. What strengths do you see in them? What are the major improvements in performance youve seen them make over the months or years youve worked with them? What are their three most important qualities? Write these down, too.

Now that youve got two listsone of experiences with the applicant, the other of their top qualitiesplay a matching game. Which experiences best demonstrate the qualities you see in the applicant?

Write your letter based on those experiences supporting X, Y and Z qualities that you want to convey about the applicant.

MBA RECOMMENDATION LETTER STRUCTURE

Once youve gone through the process detailed above, and are ready to start writing, take a look at the prompts. What does the school want to know? Which qualities are the best match for the questions? If the adcom hasnt given much guidance, use the following template:

Introduce yourself, including your position and company, and then state your relation to the applicantwhen and in what capacity did you work together? For how long? Were you a direct supervisor? Indirect supervisor? Establishing your hierarchical relationship is crucial.

Rank the applicant amongst their peers, or amongst others you have worked with at the same level throughout your career, giving the adcom a sense of just how much of a superstar this person is. In the top five out of the hundreds of associates Ive worked with over my 20-year career means a lot more than one of the best. Then name 2-3 KEY qualities of the applicant that you want to highlight (drawing from the work youve already done), and will discuss in the following paragraphs.

SHOW us those qualities, one by one, in the paragraphs that follow. Tell us about the project in which the applicant achieved a standout result because of X and Y actions that demonstrate quality A. Or the time they stepped up and took initiative, demonstrating quality B. These carefully chosen examples should not only demonstrate the qualities you want to highlight, but that this applicant is exceptionalnot your average worker bee.

Conclude by explicitly recommending the applicant, stating your belief in their high potential and the success in their future.

WRITING YOUR OWN LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION

Just dont do it! Applicants should never write their own letter of recommendation. As we pointed out earlier, the whole point of a recommendation letter is to give the adcom a valuable outside perspective, so writing your own letter can severely weaken your candidacy, not to mention bring up serious concerns about your integrity should it be discovered. Adcoms read enough of these letters to know what they SHOULD look like, and they dont take kindly to people trying to game the system.

What if I come from a culture/company where western-style letters of recommendation are not common?

Still, dont do it! Its 2019, business is very internationalized, and there are very few companies where no one has ever heard of a letter of recommendation. But there are some places where the practice of supervisor recommendation is much less important in the job marketand the adcom knows about them. Your recommender might not have as much experience, and he might not be able to write a good, detailed letter, but the adcom will know that it is authentic. More to the point, if you write the letter, the adcom will know that it is inauthentic (when compared to others from your country or company).

What if my recommender doesnt speak English?

Dont write your own letter! Just have the recommender write in their native language and get it translated. Or, if that just isnt an option, translate it yourself. But that should be a last resortyou shouldnt be touching the letter of recommendation atall!

What if my recommender would prefer that I write it and put their name on it?

Sadly, this does happen. Its usually an indication that the recommender probably isnt your best choiceif they arent willing to put in an hour or so writing, are they really that invested in your success? But sometimes this is the only option. Youre in a tough place if this is the case, but you can still make lemonade. Get as much as possible from the recommender in terms of notes and rough drafts and have someone else put it together for the recommenders review. Even in this case, you shouldnt be the one doing the actual writing. The application will be full of your writing, and the adcom will be able to tell if you also wrote the LOR.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Keep it simple. While you do want a strong MBA recommendation letter in your profile, its not the most important piece of the puzzle. Plan ahead, think hard about your best possible recommender, get the prompts into your recommenders hands, and then devote your time to the GMAT and your essays. For better or worse, this part is mostly out of the applicants hands.

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