I am planning on applying to B-School in the fall for FT programs. I am currently working at a boutique consulting firm, and came on board in September of 2013 after 2 years in Insurance. While I have some good recommendations my former employer and clients (I spent 4 months on-site with a client FT), I am not sure how to ask my current manager or supervisor for letters of rec when the time comes.
My consulting firm had a very high attrition rate with Analysts/Sr. Analysts, but they all go to different jobs, they don't leave to go to grad school. I figure I would ask in June so I can give them a full 6-8 weeks to compose a letter before Round 1 deadlines, but what is the best way to ask so that I won't get fired or never get promoted in the meantime? Also, I will have only been with the company for 9 months when I ask for this letter. Does it seem worth the risk? If I wait and ask closer to my 1 year anniversary, is it worth missing Round 1 deadlines?
Hi T.I.N.S.
You've asked a bunch of good questions. I'm going to cheat and direct you to an article I did that should answer some of your burning concerns. I wrote this for Poets & Quants about a year ago and it's still relevant
http://poetsandquants.com/2012/11/21/wrangling-great-recommendations/
See the links within about approaching your boss -- I'm not the author of the linked material, so I can tell you I think it's really valuable.
I also would say that admissions officers prefer the most recent supervisor, but if you think it puts your job in jeopardy, its completely ok to explain that in the optional essay.
sorry to be brief -- got a meeting in 1 minute.
Recommendation letters question (Originally Posted: 05/18/2014)
I am subscribed to a newsletter from a certain MBA admissions consulting practice, and here's an excerpt from one of the latest emails:
What exactly does it mean? I've got two guesses:So which is it?
1.
Option 1. They're just saying that admissions people understand if you can't get your direct supervisor to write a recommendation because you are in a position where you don't want to reveal that you're leaving. If that's the case though, I would still highly recommend having one of your recommenders be a prior direct supervisor. As mentioned simply explain why you didn't/couldn't use your current direct supervisor and it won't be viewed adversely. It's very common.
Asking for a letter of recommendation while working full time (Originally Posted: 08/24/2011)
I am currently working FT in a regional PWM office and will be apply to MSF programs within the next few months. I will be needing 2-3 letters of rec for the programs I am apply for and since I have 1+ years of FT work experience I will need some of them to come from co-workers/supervisors/managers.
My group is small and I rose quickly so I am a pretty important component to the group right now. I am confident that my 2 supervisors would not be thrilled to know I am thinking about leaving. It is HIGHLY likely they would not write a letter of rec, start throwing bitch work at me, and make things very unpleasant overall. No one else in my group is of much seniority and they wouldn't want to risk our supervisors finding out they helped me anyway. There is one other manager who I could ask, but I once heard him ask someone if they had a copy of a rec letter he could borrow because he has NEVER written one before and was making an exception for someone.
Even if I took a chance by asking my supervisor and just sucked it up and did the bitch work for another couple months, what if something happens (i.e. don't get accepted, something crazy happens and going back to school becomes financial impossible, etc.) and I have to stay there? Then I would be even worse off.
I feel like this shouldn't be so difficult/stressful. Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated.
Sorry about the typo's/grammar... I just wanted to get this post out ASAP so I can get this taken care of
I've got one SB left haha getting desperate for some solid advice or a similar experience
i think you can also ask clients as well -- it is not preferred but youre in a client facing business so if you did heavy interaction this could be plausible.. if you have a situation with a client that would be good to do it with of course. ps dont bump something twice before even 24 hours are up lol but uh yeah you may have to sack up for one manager, might want to do the shittier writer and coach him through it a bit and give him bullets on things to talk about
Haha my bad, but my first post wasn't meant to be a bump. I just noticed a minute after I wrote it that it was kind of shitty and it was the end of the day and I guess I was too lazy to go back in and edit it.
Just to clarify, I work in PWM and there are multiple groups in our office but we are all separate and have our own clients and rarely ever collaborate on anything. Each group has there own VP's and then there are a couple Directors/Managers who oversee the office as a whole but really have no ties to anyone.
Let's say I confided my intentions of applying to MSF to one of the Directors... this is a longshot but is there any chance there are rules that allow me to confide information to my manager without them passing it along to the VP of my group?
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