Let Someone Else Do the Work for You

There is perhaps nothing more satisfying in life than having someone else do the work for you. This applies to tough manual labor, exhausting deep thinking, and everything in between. For some, it represents the pleasure of being able to relax while someone else takes care of things. But, for others, it means making their own tough jobs much easier.

This idea of "They do the work for me, and therefore make my own job easier," comes up frequently in the graduate management education space. We've heard this same idea come up in two areas that almost seem to be at exact opposites of the MBA spectrum, but are in fact closely related: MBA admissions and the post-business school job market. We'll start with the latter.

MBA Admissions Officers Do the Work for Future Employers
When employers are pressed for why they tend to recruit MBAs from the same top business schools, their answer often boils down to: "The schools wouldn't have admitted them if they weren't great, so we know we're fishing in a pool of highly skilled talent. The schools make it easy for us to find a lot of great potential hires in one place." That's not a new idea -- yes, getting one's "ticket punched" at a top MBA program can sometimes seem to be the real value in earning an MBA -- but it cuts right to the heart of what employers must deal with.

A large management consulting firm may want to hire 80 associates this year. While they could theoretically cast a net as wide as the entire world, it makes their jobs much easier when focus on the top five or ten (or whatever the cutoff may be) MBA programs. This isn't elitism as much as it is a need for convenience and a lack of infinite time and money. These employers are saying, "They got into these schools, so they must be pretty good." Out of necessity, they put their trust in the top schools admissions offices to do their jobs right, and to keep their classrooms stocked with A-level talent.

... And Reco Writers Do the Work for Admissions Officers
So, now the pressure is entirely on business school admissions officers, right? They have to sift through thousands of great essays, GMAT scores, and resumes to separate the wheat from the chaff. (HBS alone had to sift through more than 9,500 applications this past admissions season.) Even after interviewing some or all of the applicants, how can tell who's great vs. who merely talks a good game?

Fortunately for them, much of the proof resides in each applicants' letters of recommendation. We recently heard an admissions officer say (I'm paraphrasing here): "Recommendation writers have seen the applicant in a variety of situations, and knows him far better than we can after reading a few essays. They know the applicant's true grit, and they're communicating that to us. A well-written letter of recommendation makes our jobs much easier in this way." It's the same exact dynamic at work in both instances: The person in the decision maker's seat needs to make an important decision without having perfect information. So, they need help from someone else who knows you better.

Use This Dynamic to Get Into Business School
When business school applicants talk about the admissions game, they spend a lot of time talking about the GMAT and their essays. Their letters of recommendation seem to reside in a place in their minds somewhere below their essays and above the data sheets -- important, but not quite as exciting as some of the headliners in their application. Nothing could be further than the truth. Although your recommendation writers most likely (you hope) support your candidacy, what they say about you -- and how they say it -- is critically important for an admissions officer who needs to make a decision on your candidacy.

So, recruit recommendation writers who know you well and will be very enthusiastic about your candidacy. Spend as much time as you can preparing them with specific examples to support their answers, and drive home the message that they should communicate nothing less than 100% passion about your candidacy. When MBA admissions officers see these elements in a recommendation, they know they're on to something good. They can only learn so much about you from your test scores and essays, so this "second voice" is a critical voice in the evaluation process.

Use it to your advantage, and you can put admissions officers at ease as they review your application, because they'll know that someone else has done the work for them in finding a terrific young professional.

For more MBA admissions help, give us a call at (800) 925-7737 and speak with one of our admissions experts today. And, be sure to subscribe to this blog and follow us on Twitter!

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What If I Can't Get a Recommendation from My Boss?

Every business school application requires you to submit at least one letter of recommendation. These letters corroborate your admissions story, providing additional evidence of the leadership skills, analytical abilities, teamwork skills, and maturity that you have highlighted in the rest of your application. The best person to do this is normally your direct supervisor, but what if you can't (or don't want to) tell your boss yet that you're applying to business school?

Fortunately, MBA admissions officers know that many applicants face this situation, and they won't penalize you for it. Particularly in a rough economy, when job security seems to matter even more than usual, they know that you may take a serious risk by telling your boss, "If all goes according to plan, in a year I won't be here anymore." So, they're willing to accept recommendations from other sources, as long as they give admissions officers what they need.

What most schools want, more than anything, is to hear an assessment of your abilities by someone who knows you well and has been in a position to evaluate you. That's why your direct supervisor is your most obvious choice; he or she should spend a lot of time thinking about your performance, making it easy to provide an assessment of you as a young professional. Assuming that person is out of the picture, then you need to find someone else who meets these criteria:

1. Does the "substitute recommender" know you well, in a non-social capacity? This person must have worked closely with you for some period of time; otherwise, they don't really know your professional abilities and potential. We wrote "non-social" to make clear that this person needs to be more than an acquaintance, but we stopped short of saying "professional" since this person may come from outside of your job. For instance, if you devote serious time to a non-profit organization, someone who has served as a coordinator there may know you very well and may be a good person to provide a letter of recommendation.


2. Has this person worked with you recently? We frequently talk to MBA applicants who have a seemingly good candidate in mind, but they haven't worked with that person for a few years. When you're a young professional, a few years is an eternity in terms of your development. Ideally, your substitute recommender will have worked with you in just the last year or two, or (even better) still works with you now.


3. Does he or she have experience evaluating others in a professional setting?If your recommendation writer has never delivered a performance review in any setting, how will he or she be able to speak about your candidacy with authority? This doesn't mean that your recommendation writer needs to have managed an entire department for years; the point is to find someone who can deliver a fair, even-handed-sounding (but still glowingly positive!) review of your candidacy.


4. Does the person in question have enough time to do the job? This question always applies, even if your recommendation comes from your current boss. Too often, the recommendation writer will underestimate the task, or will simply say, "I don't have time. You just write it for me and I'll sign it." Make sure that your recommendation writer understands the task at hand, and devotes enough time to it. You can help a great deal by providing specific examples of your recent successes that he or she may not remember. Doing that makes the recommender's job easier, and makes the final product significantly stronger.

Keep in mind that what really matters is what your recommender writes about you, more than who exactly your recommender is. MBA admissions officers keep an open mind about these things, but it's critical that your letters of recommendation provide all the clues that schools look for. Not only should your recommendations emphasize the four dimensions mentioned at the start of this post, but they should also clearly demonstrate the enthusiasm that your recommenders have about you and your business school candidacy. Find someone who can do that, and you will be fine.

For more MBA admissions tips and resources, give us a call at (800) 925-7737 and speak with one of our admissions experts today. And, be sure to subscribe to this blog and follow us on Twitter!

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Three Ways a Letter of Recommendation Can Go Wrong

Recently we talked to a new client who just went through a rough Round 1 of the MBA admissions process. Although the round isn't over yet, the way his interview invitations are going, it looks like he's not going to have much success. Once he saw the writing on the wall, he came to us for help. We took a look at the applications that he submitted to his Round 1 schools, and just about everything seemed to be in order: strong work experience with a history of increasing responsibility, essays that tell interesting personal stories of growth and maturity, a solid undergraduate university, and a GMAT score that puts him above the mean score at most top schools.

Everything looked great, so we were wondering what could be wrong. Then, he asked one of his recommendation writers to share what he submitted on behalf of this candidate, and then we saw it: a vague, lukewarm letter that answered the questions (not very well), and nothing more. Without knowing much else about this candidate, we quickly determined that his letters of recommendation may have been the culprit.

What's so tough about letters of recommendation is that they're the part of the application over which you have the least control. The GMAT can be scary since it all comes down to how you perform in a few hours in one sitting, and your undergraduate transcripts are in the past, so there's nothing you can do to change them, but all of these things are determined by you (and can be overcome or mitigated with some work). When it comes to letters of recommendation, however, you're putting your future in someone else's hands. Even if that person adores you and wants to see you walk out of Harvard with an MBA in three years, he may have no idea of what he's doing when it comes to helping you get in!

While a lot of factors go into creating a terrific letter of recommendation for a business school application, here are three ways in which recommendations frequently go wrong:

1. A lack of enthusiasm.While your recommendation writer shouldn't sound like a raving lunatic, he should sound as if he really, really cares about whether or not you get into the target school. If this person is so invested in whether or not you get in, clearly he must care a great deal about you, and business schools want applicants who forge strong ties with those around them. If your recommendation writer seems "blah" about whether or not you get in, and doesn't think you've earned the highest possible ratings (for recommendations that ask the person to rate the applicant on a scale), admissions officers will wonder if you're the type of person who just leaves a trail of "blah" in your wake. No business school wants that. The more that your recommendation writer shows that he really cares about your success, the better that reflects on you as an applicant.


2. Not enough specifics. Some question prompts will ask for specific examples of leadership, teamwork, problem-solving abilities, and so on. Many won't ask for specifics, but that doesn't mean your recommendation writer doesn't need to provide them. Which do you think is more compelling? "This applicant is a great leader," vs. "This applicant is a great leader, as demonstrated by the time last year when he stepped in for a departed manager and led a team of six analysts to complete a project on time and save a critical client relationship." Just as they do in your own admissions essays, specific examples help to make these important traits more concrete and believable in admissions officers' minds.


3. Not staying consistent with your application themes. While the above two failings catch many more amateurish applicants, this one is where even savvy applicants sometimes see their candidacies fall apart. If your essays stress how much you want to shift away from investment management and move into the non-profit sector, but your supervisor writes about how she knows how badly you want an MBA so that you can accelerate your career in finance, that will raise a red flag for admissions officers. Either you're not being honest with the school, or you're not telling your supervisor your true intentions. You can avoid these kinds of red flags by outlining your key application themes and walking your recommendation writers through them. While we firmly believe that your recommendation writers need to write their own letters, this kind of advance preparation is smart (and even necessary).

For more help with your MBA letters of recommendation, give us a call at 800-925-7737 and talk to one of our admissions experts. And, as always, be sure to follow us on Twitter!

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Harvard Business School's Advice on Recommendations

Yesterday Harvard Business School Dean of Admissions Dee Leopold wrote a blog post dispensing some good advice to HBS applicants regarding their MBA letters of recommendation. While what she wrote is all consistent with what we have written in this space many times before, much of it bears repeating.

Dee hits on several key themes that we tell our clients, and that are covered in detail in Your MBA Game Plan, our MBA admissions guide. These include:

• Above all else, make sure that your recommendation writers know you well. Every year we have clients approach us and say something along the lines of, "Good news. I think I can get my CEO to write a letter of recommendation for me." If your CEO hasn't worked with you extensively, and can't discuss your strengths and potential in great detail, then this isn't very good news. Admissions officers are impressed by what YOU have done, not by what your recommendation writer has done.


• Details and specifics are key. As Dee says, "What we are hoping for are brief recounts of specific situations and how you performed." Any recommendation written in general terms -- "He's a true leader... He exhibits teamwork all the time..." -- will fail to leave a lasting impression on admissions officers.


• While your recommendations don't all have to come from the workplace, the best ones are usually written by someone who has evaluated your performance. Dee writes, "Note that we are not looking for a peer recommendation — we find it most helpful if there is some developmental distance between you and the recommender." That kind of person is typically best suited to comment on your strengths and development areas.


• Simply knowing an HBS student or grad doesn't give you any kind of leg up. See has this to say: "Please don't ask current HBS students to write to us on your behalf outside of the formal recommendation process." Of course, dozens (if not hundreds) will surely ignore her advice this year, but you heard it straight from Dee!


• This last one is Dee's most interesting point. To answer the question of whether or not someone with a tenuous job situation should go to his or her boss for a letter of recommendation, Dee says, "Especially in these unusual times, please don't jeopardize your employment in order to secure a recommendation from a current employer." While we have also shared this advice before, we glad that Dee wrote this. Having it come from the head of admissions at HBS should put some jittery applicants at ease as they grapple with this question.

For more information and advice on applying to Harvard, visit the Veritas Prep HBS information page. Also, call us at 800-925-7737 and find out how we can help you with your recommendations!

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More Advice from U Chicago Law - Letters of Recommendation

The University of Chicago blog, A Day in the Life, which was detailed here yesterday, has also posted a helpful missive on the elusive letter of recommendation.

The big takeways here are A) to find someone who knows you well enough to write substantively on your academic qualities and B) to "feather the nest" (so to speak) by providing a packet of information to the recommender in question, allowing that person to do a thorough job. Chicago also makes it clear that recommendations should be from academic sources whenever possible, so applicants would be well served to cozy up to a few professors during their junior year or (worst case) during the fall.

Furthemore, Veritas Prep is pleased to see our own tips and suggestions mirrored throughout the post. The client always wins when consultants and law schools see eye to eye.

The following is from Veritas Prep's Application Tips page and features many of the sentiments included in the U Chicago blog post:

One of the most egregious misperceptions regarding letters of recommendations has to do with the credibility of the source. While you do want to ask credible people to pen these letters, that doesn’t mean you want to ask famous people to perform the task. It is far better to have your anonymous history professor eloquently detail your passion for learning, your collegiality, and your desire for social justice than it is for a famous politician to deliver a canned letter about what a promising future you have. Admissions officers have many talents and chief among them is the ability to sniff out a cut-and-paste letter of recommendation.

Most law schools ask for either multiple academic recommendations or a combination of scholarly and professional references. The authors of these letters should be able to produce a nuanced recommendation that speaks to at least one of the five most important attributes in a law school applicant and they should really, truly know you.

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