How to Get A Great MBA Letter of Recommendation for masters

Recommendation letter for masters - For context, let’s go over a few observations about B-school letters of recommendation (LORs):

(you can verify these by skimming through some LOR prompts yourself)

1. Writing a LOR involves a lot of work. There are many questions, some of which expect long answers. In addition, you cannot reuse one LOR for different applications because every B-school application has some custom questions.
2. LORs ask about how long the recommenders have known the applicant, and how. It helps if the recommender has known you for a relatively long time (>= 1 year), and has worked with you closely.
3. LORs ask recommenders to compare applicants to other people they have worked with. It helps if they have managed many people and have done employee evaluations before.
4. Writing good LORs involves a little contextual knowledge of business schools and what they are looking for in applicants. So, it helps if your recommenders have been to B-school themselves, or have written B-School LORs before.
5. B-Schools have a strong preference for LORs written by current supervisors or former supervisors. If you get a LOR from someone else, you may need to explain why you didn’t get a LOR from a current or former supervisor.
   

With this context in mind, here is what makes a letter strong (and what doesn’t):

First, the designation of the recommender matters less than other aspects of the recommendation. Some applications explicitly say this, but even when they don’t, this is generally true.

Second, good LORs require specific examples that illustrate the qualities the B-School is looking for. Simply saying that ‘X is really intelligent/hard-working/etc.’ does not communicate anything useful to the reader. Imagine a reader who sees hundreds of applications saying ‘X/Y/Z is really intelligent/hard-working/etc.’ - how would they differentiate between these applicants? What helps your application in such cases are specific examples that explain why your recommender thinks that you are really intelligent/hard-working/etc.

Third, if your recommender asks you to write the recommendation yourself and wants to just sign off on it, that is not good for you. This last point may seem counter-intuitive. Since you have your best interests at heart and will obviously write a generous recommendation for yourself, what could go wrong when you write your own LOR? The problem is that you will not have a third-person view on yourself, and especially on how you compare with other people your recommender has worked with. This means that if you write your own LOR, you will recycle the same strengths and weaknesses that you mention in your essays and interviews. Your recommender, on the other hand, is likely to mention something different, e.g., new strengths which would have strengthened your application. A LOR that simply repeats things from your essay and interview adds no value. But a LOR that mentions new examples/qualities that you had considered trivial, but were considered important by your recommender, will boost your application.

Fourth, it is very useful to have recommenders who got to see different sides of you, rather than two recommenders who see you in the same setting doing the same work. For example, if you worked in two different companies, it is (typically) more useful to have one recommender from each company, rather than two recommenders from the same company who may end up repeating each other’s points.

Finally, LOR is something you have relatively little control over, but it is important to do what you can to manage the LOR part of your application well. You can do this by:

1. Informing your recommenders early that you want a recommendation from them so that they are not caught off-guard when you ask them right before a deadline. Writing a LOR can take a few hours, so your recommender may need 3-4 weeks of notice so that they can take time out on a weekend to write it well.
2. Finalizing your list of target schools early, so that your recommender clearly knows what deadlines they need to meet, and also so that your recommenders don’t waste their time on an application you didn’t submit.
3. Creating a short summary of data that your recommender can refer to when they look for examples to highlight your strengths/weaknesses. Just a list of project titles or one-line project summaries will do for this.
4. Explaining what the rest of the application is like, and how the LOR is used, to your recommender. If your recommenders went to a US B-school, they probably have the context they need. But if they didn’t, then this context setting will make the work more meaningful for them and also help them understand how important this is for you.
5. Being more thoughtful about the roles/companies/teams you join. Of course, this is not useful if you just decided to get an MBA and are applying immediately. But if you have a long-term plan to apply to B-school, you should factor that into your choice of roles, companies and teams you join. Roles that are people facing or team-oriented will give you relatively more opportunities to create good content for your LORs. Working for managers who have gone through the LOR seeking process themselves is also very helpful since they understand your needs very well and have the perspective needed to write an excellent LOR.
6. Performing well in your job!
7. Making sure your essays don’t contradict your LORs, or make anything confusing for readers in terms of how you and your recommender viewed the same thing.