Getting good recommendations for your Bschool app

A few days ago, I got another email from a reader whose question I posted recently and he hit me with another one that might help folks who are just now deciding whether they plan on applying to Bschool in the 2007-2008 cycle. It involves the stressful task of getting recommendations, which is one of the most important parts of the entire application process. Wow, it feels like an eternity ago when I was buggin’ out over these sorts of issues…

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Subha wrote:

“Hi Marquis,
Thanks a lot for ur response to my queries. Can you write a post on how to get wonderful recos. Most of the people in India don’t write good recos or atleast struggle to write one. Can u emphasise on how they can project a candidate as a well-rounded person or what all skills they can highlight. Not all of us have had the opportunity to increase sales by millions of dollars or signing on new customers,etc. For those who are still developers in software companies, how can we project a complete picture thru the recos? You can give small snippets of good recos that u came across.

Thanks a lot,
Subha”
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My response:

Subha, I feel like I might have answered this question in a past blog entry, but I can’t remember for sure so I’ll try to give you a short but thorough response. The funny thing about getting recommendations is that you aren’t the one who is writing them, so it is the part of the application that you have little to no control over. That isn’t to say that you are powerless here because there are several things that you can do to increase your chances of getting a well written and effective reco:

– Put together a list of people who know enough about you to write a strong recommendation –> The biggest mistake that is made with recommendations is trying to get recs from the highest placed people within an organization. This would be a good tactic if these high-rankers knew how you are on the job, but, in many cases, they’ve never worked with the candidate before, so their letters seem hollow and basic. For the purposes of this highly important application component, you’ve got to find people who have worked closely with you before, know what you are like in a given environment, and can comment on the nuances that make you unique as a person, professional, and business school applicant. The folks you pick may be somewhat lower on the corporate ladder than the alternative writers, but they would probably be able to give the bschool admissions staff a better view of who you are.

– Review the list and remove people who neither have the time nor ability to create a strong letter of recommendation –> Once you know who you’d like to ask to write a rec for you, take a second look at that list and ask yourself (a) who would have time to do so and (b) who has writing skills that are good enough to reflect you in a positive light. Don’t take this step lightly because someone with the best intentions could have some jacked up writing and make you look foolish while trying to help you. The question of whether someone has time to write a good rec is key because the last thing you’d want is to have to fall back to the next application round because one of your people submitted his letter after the deadline you were trying to meet.

– Make sure your list of recommenders is large enough so that none of them have to write more than 2-3 letters –> Some people try to keep their list of recommenders small, so they will get 2-3 people to write recs for 5+ schools. This might seem to make sense, but it brings about the possibility of overworking your writers. These people are writing for you out of the goodness of their hearts, so you have to be mindful of their time and not try to take advantage of them. This is why I recommended putting together a list of people earlier. You can assign your top, most important recommendation writers to your top choice schools and then get some of those people lower on your list to write for your other schools. With this strategy, you can ensure that your writers won’t be overburdened and will spend more time on the letter they put together for you.

– Create a packet of background information about yourself to explain your “story” to the recommenders –> I got this idea from my girl Rochelle (Goizeta 2006) while we were going through the application process. What she did was create an informational packet containing a copy of her resume, a bulleted list of the characteristics that she wanted the particular recommender to comment on in the reco, and (I believe) a copy of her “Why MBA?” essay. With these in hand, the recommender would have all of the info necessary to cover everything and write an effective letter. I found out about this halfway through my app cycle, so I only used it for 3 of my 6 schools, but I found it to be a fantastic way to “manage” my reco writers.

– Have a one-on-one discussion with each person to let them know what is expected from them in terms of a “good” letter –> Some recommenders have no idea of what a Bschool reco should look like, so it’s your job to find out and pass that knowledge along. I made that mistake with one of my writes and he literally handed me a reco answering 5 questions that was a total of 13 sentences. I just assumed that everyone knew how big of a deal this would be, but that wasn’t a safe assumption. If one of your writers tends to slack on tasks or doesn’t review his/her writing for errors often, you have to let them know that they have to be much more thorough than they usually would. Applying to Bschool is a difficult task, so don’t let someone else make it even harder for you.

– Give sufficient notice to your writers to complete the letter and check in on them regularly  This is probably the most important part of it all because I know plenty of people who didn’t check on their writers and ended up getting screwed for it. One of my friends had one of her recommenders tell her over and over that he was working on it and, when it got to her deadline day for one of her schools, the guy emailed her an hour before the deadline and said that he hadn’t had a chance to work on it so she should write it herself. It’s really wild to go through something like that…People usually mean well when they say they’ll write a reco for you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll follow through. This has a HUGE effect on your career, so it’s on you to make sure that the reco gets written and submitted on time.

Unfortunately, I can’t think of any good recos that I’ve come across because those aren’t the sort of thing that people share openly often. In fact, only two of my Bschool recommenders let me see what they wrote for me and only one of them was well written. The best way that you can ensure that you get a good set of recommendation is to pick people who will put in the time necessary to paint you in a great light and then trust them to do so.