The mbaMission Podcast

Ep 75 | How to Secure Standout MBA Recommendation Letters

• mbaMission • Season 2 • Episode 75

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Letters of recommendation are a critical -- and often overlooked -- part of the MBA application process. In this week's episode of the mbaMission podcast, Harold Simansky is joined by mbaMission Managing Director Rachel Beck and Executive Director Jessica Shklar. Harold, Rachel, and Jessica discuss the role recommendations play in business school admissions, how you should select your recommenders, and how to collaborate with your recommenders to ensure that their letters add real power to your applications. If you are applying to business school in the next 1-2 years, you won't want to miss this conversation!

00:00 Welcome to the mbaMission podcast
01:42 The importance of MBA letters of recommendation
03:02 How to choose your MBA recommenders
05:16 Does your recommender's title or alumni status matter?
07:12 MBA recommendation components 
08:48 What makes a successful recommendation?
10:41 Addressing constructive feedback and weaknesses 
12:47 How to collaborate with your MBA recommenders
16:42 How strict are recommendation word limits?
17:58 How much overlap is okay?
20:49 What if a supervisor can't write your recommendation?
25:51 What if your recommender writes a weak recommendation?
29:12 How MBA recommendation ranking grids work
34:15 Can your recommenders use AI?

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Harold:

One of the biggest parts of applying to business school is getting the right recommendations.

Rachel:

You have to be involved in the sense that you're giving them some tools that they can use. You need it to be someone that you really think is has your back and is on your side. I think there's like a false idea that you need to reach for someone high up in the organization because title matters. You want the best people who can speak about you and have them write as many as possible.

Harold:

From your perspective, what do you see in the most successful recommendations?

Rachel:

First of all, really good examples. We want the recommender to write these strong stories about you so that the admissions reader really says, wow, Rachel went above and beyond.

Jessica:

The recommendations that really stand out are the ones that can make it clear that the applicant has the X factor.

Harold:

Today we are tackling one of the most important and sometimes overlooked elements of the application: the recommendation letter. Your recommenders play a critical role in conveying who you are beyond your essays and test scores, offering an authentic perspective on your strengths, leadership, and potential for growth. To help demystify this process, we are joined by MBA Mission Executive Director, Jessica Schklar. Jessica has advised thousands of applicants through the highs and lows of securing strong recommendations. And she brings a wealth of experience in helping candidates approach this delicate yet essential part of the journey. Today we will discuss how you choose the right recommenders, how to set them up for success, and review what makes a solid and even a great recommendation letter. One of the biggest parts of applying to business school is getting the right recommendations. And for many people also, it's the scariest part. So how do you advise clients as far as getting a recommendation from who? What did you talk about?

Jessica:

Well, first of all, I think the reason it's so scary is that it's the only part of the application that's essentially out of your control. You're relying on someone else who you may not know that well to write something that is an incredibly important part of the application. And so if you're feeling scared about this, that's totally normal. It's just this is it is this, I think this is the scariest part of the process.

Rachel:

And that's why we're having a whole podcast about it. I think what a lot of applicants either realize or don't realize is that sometimes the recommenders get as much or more space than they're going that the applicant is going to get. And imagine that you're like basically handing over this huge part of your profile to someone that you're praying is going to write really strongly on your behalf. And so I think, and we'll get more into this, that's why you have to prepare them. That's that's why it can't just be like, Will you write my recommendation, please? Yeah. It's you have to you have to be involved in the sense that you're giving them some tools that they can use.

Harold:

That's right. So the question then becomes, okay, what are should your considerations be as you're choosing a recommender?

Jessica:

So I actually have a very strong philosophy about this one, which I think you guys both agree with. Um, we get asked so often, well, should the CEO write it? Well, it doesn't matter. Well, first of all, the application, the recommender is not applying. Their backgrounds, whether they went to business school, their title, whether they're still at the same company, is irrelevant because they're not the ones applying. So I tell my clients, there are primary criteria and secondary criteria. You choose the universe of possibilities, the number of people that you want to pick from based only on the primary criteria. Once you have that universe of possibilities, maybe it's two people, maybe it's four people, then you can choose them based on the secondary criteria. So I'll be less cryptic. Primary criteria are really simple. They are one level or more senior to you, they think you're amazing, and they're willing to do it. Nothing else matters. Once you have that list, then you can start saying recency versus have known you longer, senior versus not. But don't mistake this the secondary criteria for the primary ones because you're asking your recommenders to write, as Rachel said, a lot, up to a thousand words about you. So you need it to be someone that you really think is has your back and is on your side.

Rachel:

I actually take a little bit of a different approach because I think the second question that most schools ask is really the deciding criteria of who writes your recommendation, which is tell us a piece of constructive feedback that you've given the applicant and how has the applicant responded. And truth be told, when somebody is many layers above you in the pecking order, they can't answer that question because they've actually never given you constructive feedback.

Jessica:

But that does, it is the same. I agree with you completely. That's once you pick the primary criteria and you have that universe of possibilities, then how they answer that constructive feedback question is one of the key criteria for choosing among those possibilities. Correct. But imagine asking the CEO of your company to write 700 words on specific experiences you've had that are that they've had with you that are stronger than anyone else, and uh three, four hundred words on how you've responded to feedback. If you imagine them trying to write that, it becomes pretty clear they usually can't.

Rachel:

Exactly. I think there's like a false idea that you need to reach for someone high up in the organization because title matters. And I knock that off.

Harold:

That's right. And we know that directly from the admissions committee. They say title does not matter, relationship is what matters.

Jessica:

Right. Being an alum of the school doesn't matter. Also, you're wrangling a lot of two people to write these recommendations. You don't want to wrangle three or four or five. You want as few recommenders as possible to deal with because you're trying to get them and pressure them to write it on time and detailed. And so you don't want to have to have a Wharton alum write your Wharton recommendation, and a Darden alum write your Darden recommendation. You want the best people who can speak about you and have them write as many as possible.

Jeremy:

If you want to be one of our success stories, sign up for a free consultation with a member of our full-time MBA admissions team. Since we've worked with tens of thousands of applicants over the past two decades, we can give you our honest opinion on your chances and help you put together your very best application. That is not a sales call, but rather your first session with one of us for free. We can give you a profile evaluation, answer specific questions about the process, review your resume, talk about your school choices, and so much more. Sign up at nba mission.com slash consult. We look forward to working with you.

Rachel:

I also think another fallacy is, and I don't know where this gets propagated in the world, that every recommendation has to be tailored for a specific school. Do we suggest to our clients that the end of the recommendation points to a specific school? That's the tailoring. But the truth be told, every every business school is looking for leadership potential and strong interpersonal skills and analytical skills. Like they're not so different in their mission. So to try to curate all these different recommendations, you're asking people to do you a big favor. That's right. So you want to make it as easy as possible for them so they do the best job possible. Let's take a step back actually and talk about what is in the recommendation.

Jessica:

So every school asks for either one or two recommendations. I believe one school asks for three, like the Harvard Kennedy School, maybe. But you know, this year, Columbia and Wharton are each asking for one. The majority of schools ask for two. And then the recommendation, the process is you, the applicant, fills out the email address for the recommender in the application, and the school then sends them a link to fill out the recommendation. They do prefer strongly to have a non-personal email. They want a professional email. Some schools even ask for a copy of that recommender's business card. If they only have a Gmail address, um, ask them if they have an alumni address that they use. You can use a Gmail, but then you'd have to explain that they're not working or for whatever reason.

Rachel:

Just I want to add a point here. I had a client with this situation because the recommender went on extended maternity leave, so she didn't have her work email. And one of the schools said you can provide the LinkedIn link. So that's it. It's almost like a digital business card that.

Jessica:

So then there's a grid, which we can talk about of where they have to check off where you stand along a number of criteria, and they can explain that. Then the bulk of the recommendation is typically three questions. One very short, how how do you know the applicant? Then a long one, which is typically anywhere from three to seven hundred words on what are the applicant's greatest strengths and how do they compare to others. And then the most important question, which we've talked about, is what is the biggest piece of constructive feedback you've given the applicant and how did they respond to it? And then finally, an optional anything else, which we strongly encourage they fill out. It doesn't have to be as long.

Harold:

So from your perspective, what do you see in the most successful recommendations?

Rachel:

Well, first of all, really good examples. Um, you don't want it to just say, you know, Rachel has great interpersonal skills. And she's she's she's such a pleasure to have on the team. It's you want to give those specific stories that really show this is the show versus tell on steroids here, right? We want the recommender to write these strong stories about you so that the admissions reader really says, wow, Rachel went above and beyond.

Jessica:

And I also I tell them that they need to talk about both the what and the how. So what is the accomplishment they had? But the how is what personal characteristics did the applicant bring that enabled them to do it? So it's not just Rachel built a new process that really changed how we operated and saved us, you know, $500,000 a day. It's Rachel identified, and she was one of the only people at her level to do so. She had to then convince me, and I was really impressed with the interpersonal skills and the way she tailored her pitch to each audience member. It's that the how is as important as the what.

Harold:

That's right. I always tell people the recommend the recommender has to say something like, they do their job well, but they're doing the next job up the food chain well as well. The reality is I can rely on this person to when it comes to growth. They themselves are their best advocate. They themselves are tutoring themselves to make them more and more effective professionals.

Jessica:

Well, I will say though that I've seen constructive feedback answers that were about how they were not performing at that level or not doing something at that level that wouldn't be appropriate anyway. I remember one that said, well, you know, two or three levels from now, we would expect Rachel to be selling and she's not. Well, that's not a constructive feedback essay. She's not supposed to be doing that now. So what do you think makes for a good thing?

Harold:

So the constructive feedback, listen, what I tell folks is you have to work it backwards. What are you doing now that you weren't doing last year? And I say constructive feedback really is is an example of how you've most improved this idea here. I mean, for many people it is, well, let me put put it aside here. The thing that I don't want to ever see is he works too hard. It's like the yeah, that that's always sort of silly silly. Exactly. That's always sort of silly. But this mo notion here of it has to be real. And then as you folks said, it has to be detailed. You have to explain, you have to prove it. He has to prove now that you're having much better client interactions.

Jessica:

So I actually give recommenders an acronym to help them with this answer that I developed. It's WISP W I S P. So I say, write about a real weakness, not oh, he's such a perfectionist, he doesn't understand other people are. But also it's not a devastating weakness. Well, he used to harass women in the office, but he doesn't anymore. So it has to be No, we don't want that. Yeah. It has to be a real weakness that's not a devastating weakness. That's the W. The I is what was the impact? If this person had not improved, what would have affected, how would it have affected their career or the organization? The S is steps. What steps have they taken to improve on this weakness? And then the P is what you said is proof. How have they grown? Can we see that they've made progress? You don't have to have fixed it. Like all my recommenders ever talk about how I interrupt, which you guys probably know. And you know what? I'm never not going to be an interrupter because I speak with enthusiasm, I'm excited by my ideas, I'm going to jump in. But I have learned how to control it and how to minimize it and how to apologize for it. And so it's, you know, it's about progress, not perfection.

Rachel:

I also say to my clients all the time, like, you're very young in your career, like you've gotten feedback, but it's not earth-shattering, and that's okay. As long as the feedback is Rachel needed this to work on, and she did it. And these are the steps she took to improve this situation. So you might kind of changing, shifting here, shifting ideas here. How can you get the recommenders to write these strong stories? And I think this that is one, it's actually one of the hardest points, but one of the easier points too, because even though the schools are very firm that they don't want you to be involved in the writing of the recommendations, and we really advise our clients do not write the recommendations. But there's no harm in saying to your recommenders, I know this process is really hard and long. And I want to give you some of my thoughts of things that I've done under your watch that I think are notable, and in some ways, kind of create the what I call a cheat sheet for them, which is just kind of thinking like, oh, remember, remember last year when I did this? Or and and giving some detail that you're giving them the show.

Jessica:

Right.

Rachel:

And you write it in bullet point first person form that they have to then write it themselves.

Harold:

Right. I was gonna ask you. So are we talking about an actual document that our the applicant gives to the recommender? And at what point do you draw the line? From frequently, we will be asked, hey, can you help me write the recommendation for the recommender?

Jessica:

What's interesting is recommenders often think they're doing a favor. They'll say, just write whatever you want and I'll sign it. Well, first of all, schools check the IP address that the recommendation came from, so it cannot be from your computer. But more so, you can't write about yourself as a senior level person. You just it can't, and you can't disguise your writing style. Right. So it's not a good idea.

Harold:

Frequently you're not as enthusiastic as a recommender is.

Rachel:

I I don't even say do a document. I say you're just sending an email. You're just sending it in an email form, like, and you're basically laying out the process for the recommender. Like this is how this is going to go down. Here are the schools I'm applying to, here's the deadline. By the way, it is not the deadline. It's not the real deadline, please, because I've lived through many nights where the recommenders don't submit on time, and then it's like you're bumped.

Jessica:

I tell them to sit to put my clients put down the date I will be submitting. Yeah. So you're not lying to them, you're not saying giving them a false deadline. You're saying I will be submitting two weeks early.

Rachel:

Here's the date. Yes. So you're giving them the deadline. You're explaining that I'm going to submit your email to the school, and the school is going to send you something. So you should be on the lookout for that. And then here are the questions that you're going to be asked. And here are some thoughts of my accomplishments that I've had, strong traits that I feel that I presented. Here's some a piece of constructive feedback that you've given me. And I really made some demonstrated changes because of it. And it's a tip sheet. And if they use it, they use it. If they don't use it, they don't use it.

Jessica:

And that's I will say also we could download from our website a guide to recommenders, which has a subsection under the recommender chapter that's called for the recommender. And it actually goes through everything we're talking about, including having a sample recommendation letter that's annotated. So you can give that. So if your recommender is not going to pay attention to your cheat sheet. And maybe if you're a client of ours, they won't want us to help with them with the letter, which we're willing to do. At least maybe they'll look at this sample letter and learn what they can say. The other tip I always give my clients is ask your recommender for more schools than you think you're going to need. So you can say to them, I'm applying to up to seven schools. These are the five I know of now. And 90% of the work is with the first one, and I'm going to make your life as easy as possible. But by getting them to agree to seven and only doing five now, that means if you do decide to add a sixth, you're not nervous about going back to them because they've already agreed. And if you ask them to do a seventh, they've already agreed.

Harold:

That's right.

Jessica:

So otherwise you're suddenly saying, I can't ask them again. I now have to go back to someone who's not as good a recommender and I just start the whole process over again. So up front, and you can say I'm going to spread them over round one and round two.

Rachel:

Again, 90% of the work is with the first question. I would even say more than 90%. I mean, it's once once they write the initial recommendation, it's basically changing a few.

Jessica:

Well, some schools like Kellogg and MIT tend to have an additional question, but you can pull it from the main one.

Harold:

I think that's right. And an important point is when it comes to word limits for recommenders, it is a soft requirement. There's there are some schools that are going to be, I think I guess Warden is still 350 words, and that's it. But for most schools, it's a soft requirement, which really gives an extra degree of freedom for the recommender, which they appreciate, as well as you do want to encourage them to keep ongoing. This idea here of you they do not have to stop at whatever the word limit is. Right, correct.

Jessica:

Because comparatively, a lot of people will not, and so it does look worse if you are under the word limit. Except for the weak for the constructive feedback question, uh, you know, that can be as long as it's comprehensive. I don't think you have to go on and on, give two examples, anything like that. It's just very straightforward. What's the weakness? What was the impact? What steps did you take to improve, and then show me that this person improved. If you can do that in 200 words, that's fine.

Harold:

That that's right. Listen, when I tell my clients what what should be what should be seen on the recommendation, I always tell folks, your greatest hits. You need someone who's going to speak to those things that you do really well, sometimes validating actually what's what you yourself have said. And and candidly, sometimes recommenders have to say certain things. You cannot say, I, you know, I'm the greatest person, I'm the top five consultants that that my uh recommenders ever worked with. You cannot say that. And you have to also recognize that. But that does bring us to a question of overlap. This idea here of your recommender may include certain things. What if your essays include those things? Is that good, bad, or indifferent? Or should you even know?

Rachel:

I don't think it's a bad thing if there's overlap. In some ways, I think about it, like maybe the essay has part of the story, but then the recommender is giving kind of more detail on the role that you played or the initiative that you took that you couldn't necessarily tell in your own essays. So I don't think there's a harm in having some repetitive parts to it, but you also want some it would you would like some new ideas too that the recommender has perspective on that you have no opportunity to tell in your application.

Jessica:

I think what really matters is the recommender should write about what they know about. And so they shouldn't write about something that you that you know you've told them in passing. They need to so there's probably going to be overlap because if you worked with them, they both worked on the same project. So there is going to be overlap, but that's okay.

Harold:

That's right. And also they can write about things that again you can't write about so well, nor are they particularly easy to quantify. If we sort of if we tell our c consult uh our clients that you should try to quantify a lot of your accomplishments, well, the recommender doesn't have to do that. They can say very simply, I've worked with many people over the years. I s like spending time with Jessica. I think that's an important point here. Jessica is a wonderful team member. She clearly is very empathetic. They can say that, you can't say that.

Rachel:

It kind of comes to the next point, though, when you have two recommenders. And I get this question asked a lot, like, I worked with these two recommenders on the same project. What can I overlap with them? And I always say, well, try to think of different pathways that they could tell about that same project, because presumably you didn't work in lockstep with both these recommenders on everything. So you want to be able to showcase different parts of that story. And I think that's very important.

Harold:

That's right. Two recommenders, two halves of a whole.

Jessica:

Right. And it's easier when they come from different companies, but it they can't, you can't always do primary criteria and secondary criteria. You may not always be able to do that. Uh often people ask us, applicants ask us, should I give my recommender my resume or should I give them my essays? And I have a pretty resounding no on that one. Uh sometimes the recommenders will ask for it, but again, recommenders need to write about what they have experienced with you directly. This is why staffers or mentors often are not good recommenders because they only hear about you from you, but they haven't supervised you on a project. So if you give them your resume or you give them your essay, they're going to be tempted to use the same language or to write about community activities or things that they haven't experienced. If they have experienced them because you work on a community activity through the company, sure they can write about it, but they should be writing about what they have experienced with you.

Harold:

That's right. And sometimes it gets hard to do that. And what I mean is there are certain jobs, there is no natural recommender. Listen, if you work at a big consulting firm, everyone is double staffed. Manager one, manager two. Very easy, we know that. How about working for your parents in the family business? How about being an entrepreneur where people work for you, you don't work for them? How do you think about who should those recommenders should be?

Rachel:

If you can get a supplier or a vendor or a lawyer or something like that, that client is a great recommender.

Jessica:

Um, it should not be someone who shares your last name or signs your pay or whose paycheck you sign. But it can be um it I've seen people in family businesses who have a very senior person who's worked at the company a lot longer than they have. And so even though technically the this recommender works for the family, um, it's clearly a more senior, a more advisory kind of role.

Rachel:

And that can work well. Definitely, definitely. It's hard when it's a new business and you don't really have other people. Um, I've had this this past year with a client who's um starting a family office, and we really had to work hard to think of who could be the recommender and what stories might this these recommenders tell about him that were compelling because the family office is also new. So there wasn't like we didn't have that much stuff. So it does, it takes some brainstorming and takes some time. And as we've said through a lot of different things, um, when we're talking about the essays and the application, this is part of the application that has to take place well in advance of the deadlines. Like you can't ask your recommender three weeks beforehand, will you be my recommender? Because it won't get done and won't get done well. This is something that you want to be planning out months in advance to give the person time. Worst case scenario, they file it six weeks early. The schools will accept it.

Harold:

That's right.

Jessica:

Especially for round two, because round two is typically the first week of January. If you wait till the last minute, you're asking your recommenders to fill out this application over Christmas, over New Year's, over whatever other holidays they celebrate when their kids may be off school for vacation. You don't want to put that burden on them.

Harold:

No, no, definitely not. How about if you can't get a direct supervisor as your recommendation? What do you do at that point?

Jessica:

Well, you can't always. There are multiple reasons for it. If you don't get along with your supervisor, that's so then you want to ask someone senior who's in the company or who knows you well. And you could just write an explanation in the essay that's in the optional essay, or the if there's a question about why did you not pick your supervisor, just talking about how I would never say, well, my supervisor doesn't like me. But you might want to say the person I asked has worked more closely with me in more recent or can speak to a different dimension. If it's going to jeopardize your career, you can absolutely say that and speak to that. Absolutely.

Rachel:

Or your bonus.

Jessica:

Yeah.

Harold:

Yeah.

Jessica:

Asking my recommender would jeopardize my career, and therefore I asked someone from my last company. Okay. How far back do you usually go with recommenders? How many years back?

Rachel:

I feel like it really depends on the person who I'm working with and and what their experience is. Like I've had people go back to a job that was three years ago because they have such a good relationship with that recommender and they have somebody more current, but that's really the natural next thing. But it does feel a little bit old because the growth in that three years was a lot. But we also sometimes you have to take what you can get. If that person is the best person to write the recommendation, then we have to grab. By the way, college professors don't work for people who have been employed. No news flash. Right.

Jessica:

But that also speaks to the refrain that you probably have heard if you watch these podcasts of starting early. If you identify your recommender six months in advance, well, then you can get if we engaged with them. You can ask them if there's any project you can take on for a short period of time. You can make an old recommender more current by planning in advance.

Harold:

That's right. And that's also a great conversation to have with that recommender. Do you think, what do you think about business school? What was your experience? If you can turn that recommender into a mentor, then that immediately is going to be a bonus. That's going to be a plus for you. They suddenly start getting very committed to the entire process themselves. Flipping this around completely, over the years, I've certainly had folks who, for all sorts of variety of reasons, cannot get a good recommender. At that point, how do you even navigate something like that?

Jessica:

It's really hard. We had this conversation with someone who desperately wants to apply to business school, and she's spoken with a couple of people in the company, but we've been exploring with her, just through the consultations and fit calls, who she would get for a recommender. And she's adamant that she cannot get one. We have said to her, until you can get a recommender, your application's a non-starter. We're not going to take your money if you can't have a reasonable application, if you can't meet the criteria. So it's really hard. Um, I, you know, not to get all therapists, but if you cannot ask anyone in your past to write something good about you, I think there's a bigger issue going on than whether you should be applying to business school.

Rachel:

So, you know, I that's in in the same vein. Sometimes you pick someone who's really excited about it and they do a horrible job. Yes. And that is, I just had that last week and my client was really panicking. By the way, this has been going like I've been like, where's the recommendation? Where's the recommendation? The recommender get it in. And um, the recommendation was extremely weak. So I had my client go back to the recommender and full disclosure, the the applicant shouldn't see the recommendation, but we know that a lot of times they do the recommender shares it as like, does this sound okay? And actually it sounded like Bill is so great and he's such an important part of our team. And that was it. It would, there was no example. So I said, I think that you had given your recommender this cheat sheet. And I think you have to say, thank, you know, give a lot of praise. Thank you so much for taking the time. You know, I think that it just needs to be sharpened a bit so that there are real examples in there, because otherwise it's just basically, you know, praise, but without any detail, backing up the praise. And the recommender then was like, oh, I didn't realize I should pull in those examples and then ended up doing a great job, but it was this 24 hours of tension.

Jessica:

I will lean into the competition because your recommender is probably pretty type A and high power themselves. And I will say to either to them directly or if my clients involved, I'll say, compared to other recommendations, this is going to come across as weaker or as shorter or as less detailed. I know you support this person, and I don't want your recommendation to look less good than other people's and then and play into that as well. And also our clients, we can encourage them to sit down with your recommender. You can't write it, but you can sit with them and brainstorm topics for them.

Harold:

That's right. Or we can do that. And what I mean by that is one thing we do, that may a mission, we are actually very involved in this process. Again, short of writing it, we will not make it doesn't make sense to it.

Jessica:

Short editing. We won't line edit because our voice might be too common.

Harold:

That's right. Short of really getting involved to that. We don't get our hands dirty. No, but we do have but we do have sometimes have conversations with these folks for with the recommenders. And one thing that it is always important to remember, writing a recommendation can actually be a very lonely process. You are sort of put in the corner. It's like a like you're back in school with one of those blue books, you have to sit in front of the computer. Many recommenders may in fact not do this very well and or know how to do this. At that point, then they do need someone to talk to. They do need somebody to really get involved, if only from an advisory role. And if you as the uh applicant can play that role, maybe you can find somebody else.

Jessica:

One key question that we have not talked about is the whole idea of waiving your rights.

Harold:

Right.

Jessica:

That's a good point.

Harold:

That's a that's an easy one.

Jessica:

Applications, the the recommendation asks you, do you waive your right to see it? And you will always check off the box that says, yes, I waive my right to see it. But be really, really clear on what that means. That waiving your right is a legal agreement between you and the school. It has nothing to do with the recommender. All you're saying is you will never be able to sue the school to show them the letter. If the recommender wants to show it to you, it's completely unrelated. And a lot of recommenders don't realize that either. So if they say, Well, I can't I'd love to show it to you, but I can't because you waived your right, you're waiving your right. You're not waiving the ability. And that's up to the recommender.

Harold:

That's the opportunity. Okay, so let's talk about the ranking grid.

Jessica:

So they'll have like a three columns, 10 grids, and they'll say, the easiest ones are top, you know, top 2%, top 5%, top 50%, bottom 50%, something like that. Sometimes, like Stanford has a really much more descriptive one, like improving. Outstanding.

Harold:

Right, I think.

Jessica:

Um, sometimes they'll have longer descriptions.

Harold:

Right. And Warden now has a completely different one where you choose between a number of different phrases and things. But the bottom line is it's a little bit like a Yelp review in the sense of okay, how does this person compare to other people that you've known or worked with? So how do you answer it?

Rachel:

It's actually really hard because the truth is that you want a lot of high rankings, but you don't want all high rankings or highest rankings. So you have to, in some ways, be a little bit Strategic in what you're picking as the thing that you're going to go down one notch. You never want a low ranking because that would be terrible. And I was actually talking with a recommender about this last week too, because the truth is, is like the things that I would want the client to really work on, I would not want to tell the business school that those are the things that I would like the client to really work on. So I tried to pick, and I'm trying to remember off the top of my head what it was, but I think one of it was one of one of the prompts was something like dealing with superiors or something like written communication skills. Like things that are improvable during business school was something that I said, like, let's think of it that way. We we we don't want to target things like integrity or you know, he works well with others, like he's supportive or things like that. We want to be able to um continue and and have those as the highest ranking. Right, right.

Jessica:

And that's the same thing. I say most should be highest ranking. One can be two notches down, but it can't be a big one. And then one or two can be the second highest ranking. But again, it's things that are improved. I love the idea. I hadn't thought of that before, of things you can be improving during business school. Um so stay away from integrity, stay away from teamwork, those are always going to be at the highest. And if your recommender cannot say that you're at the highest on integrity, you probably pick the wrong recommender.

Harold:

That's right. That's exactly right. Exactly. That's exactly.

Jessica:

I have seen sometimes consulting firms often the recommender says everything is average because I'm assuming excellence. And so, and that's a really difficult one because that's their philosophy. And I worked at a company once where like literally everybody was rated as average, but where the and because the recommender said I always rate people that way because my assumption is you're always exceeding expectations. So if you're exceeding expectations, that's average.

Harold:

Okay.

Jessica:

And that's a really like they would have to explain that one big time in the application, if the recommendation, if they're going to do that.

Harold:

That's right. Which of course then leads to the fact that what they wrote really has to be stellar, has to be very specific, and really has to show this person as, again, one level up, whatever that means from who else is applying. And that I think is actually an important point. We just were spoken speaking with someone earlier who worked at Bain for many, many years. She said in any given year, there are probably about a hundred Bain consultants applying to business holder associate consultants. Let's talk about BCG, let's talk about McKinsey, and those are bigger firms. Pretty quickly, you're looking at, let's say, 300 to 350 people who actually look a lot alike. Uh so I tell folks very frequently these folks, the one place where you can really grab some value is by making sure that your recommender is the one who says, I've known a lot of McKinsey consultants, this person truly is exceptional. Right.

Rachel:

And this is why. And by the way, to get that little extra bump from a recommender is you're not just doing your job. You do other things within the organization you work for because they see that as a real value.

Jessica:

We have a video of a podcast on the X factor and how do you show X factor? And I think it comes to the same thing with recommendations. The recommendations that really stand out are the ones that can make it clear that the applicant has the X factor. And they do that through having detail, through their own knowledge of the applicant, of knowledge of other applicants, and of being able to articulate how that person is really special.

Harold:

Yes. That's right. Because at the end of the day, recommendation is really all about explaining how you're different, how you may be better than someone who, quote, looks like you. And I think it's also important to tell recommendations, recommenders directly, you are an important part of the process. In actual fact, the recommender might be the most important part of the process. And that's always important to keep in mind, both in terms of choosing a recommender, communicating with your recommender, and candidly following up with the recommender, including a thank you.

Jessica:

Yes, I'm glad you said that. Yes. A thank you gift, a thank you note. Be appreciative. Good manneries go a really long way. And just thanking them, they're doing a lot of work for you. And if they're putting a thought into it and they're spending nights working on it, you want to have guided. That person's now in your corner for the rest of your life. If you thank them. And if you don't, that you've lost that relationship.

Rachel:

I want to throw one more thing in here. I guess I'm I always am bringing up lately AI. And we know that recommenders are go are using AI with the recommendations because they can have their ideas and it it might make it sound a lot prettier. Um, you can't control your recommender's use of AI. Just that's fact. Um, what you have to hope is that the ideas that the recommender uses are original ideas, they're strong ideas, and they're articulated well.

Harold:

Yeah, and they're specific.

Rachel:

And they're specific. And um why we would like the recommender to write the recommendation in his or her own voice, right? That's the most important because that really shows that passion for somebody. Um, that it's very hard to control that right now.

Jessica:

But if you have a really good relationship with your recommender, it's kind of the same thing as if they ask you to write it themselves, yourself. You can say, in this age of AI, uh admissions offices are on the lookout for any similarities in language, any indication that this was done by AI. So I know that it is helpful, but it would be really better for my recommendation if you could write it yourself. I'm working with a consultant who's happy to help you with it, but if you cannot use AI because the admissions offices will run it through a detector and they are on the lookout for that. And again, you're appealing to their desire to help you. They're saying yes because they want to.

Harold:

Right. Just as most applicants in business school are somewhat competitive people, at the end of the day, recommenders are as well.

Jessica:

Can I tell you my my biggest horror story recommendation? My second year here. Um, my kids were really little, and I had this fantastic applicant who had been very involved in his college as a student leader and continued to do a volunteer job for the school for years afterwards. And he said he was going to get the president of the school to write the recommendation. And he said, I know he knows me really, really well, which was seemed pretty clear from the recommender memo. So we're getting close to the deadline, haven't gotten it, haven't gotten it. And he's like, he keeps calling me and he's saying my recommender's on vacation. I keep calling the office. I finally get a phone call and I remember so clearly where I was. My kids were in swim class, and I'm sitting by the side of the pool, and I get an email from him, and he says, you know, he called me and he said, I just sent you the email with the recommendation. Oh my god, oh my god, you have to look at it. I'm in trouble. And I open up my phone, he's taking a picture. It is a faxed sheet that has scribbled in handwriting. So-and-so is a really good person. I've known his family and him for years. You should take him to your business school. That was it. Oh boy. That's proper. And this is the night before the deadline.

Harold:

Yeah.

Jessica:

And so we um we scrambled and he got into a school. He found someone else at the school who was a similar profile, whom he was very close to, who was able to redo the whole thing into a lot of detail. I was up pretty late. That's night we all were, but he got it in and he ends up getting into his top choice school. But it was, I will never forget that. And that's why everything we say is do things early.

Harold:

Absolutely, because it's so out of your hands. This is the one piece of the application that's really out of your hands.

Rachel:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

Harold:

When all said, well, great. So those are our recommendations about recommendations. If you'd like to find out more information about recommendations, by all means go online, check out some of our free resources, and sign up for a 30-minute consultation with me, with Jessica, with Rachel, with any one of our 25 or so consultants.

Jessica:

And you can use the consultation to brainstorm who your recommenders should be if that's how you want to use it. We can talk about anything in that call. But if recommenders is what's bothering you right now, let's have that conversation.

Harold:

Exactly. Give us a call. And thank you very much for listening today.

Jeremy:

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