Letter of Recommendation too brief or technical?
Hi
I'm working @ high tech company (think apple, google, msft) as hardware development engineer supporting manufacturing supply chain and currently applying to MBA.
I have already received letters of recommendations and had a chance to read them.
I'm concerned with one of the letters I received.
The recommender did say everything nice but not sure what he wrote fits MBA well...
He did comment pretty well or at least okay on my technical skills and communication area. However, he did not elaborate much on my business related or leadership role/skill. And not sure his ~200 words rec is too short?
Is it okay if I ask him to point out few other areas of my skill (e.g. leadership. project management, etc)
And how much one specific recommendation letter count? And my another recommendation is great in a sense that it covers not only the technical but also the nontechnical.
What I have written here might not present full picture, so let me know if I should provide bit more details.
EngrVic
As someone project managing your own admissions process, you really want to make sure your recommender has the information and the tools to write a great letter that will help you get in. From what you've told us thus far, the letter you've received will either be disregarded or have a negative effect on your application because you haven't managed up enough.
Admissions officers have come right out on their websites and told students what they are looking for in a recommendation, and I encourage you to take them at their word. Some very good tips can be found on the Stanford Graduate School of Business website. http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/mba/admission/dir_references-p.html
Kirsten Moss, the GSB’s former Director of MBA admissions, wrote classic article on this subject -- clear advice for all applicants, not just Stanford. She purports that the recommendation is “about about bringing this person alive. How, if they left tomorrow, would the organization have been touched in a unique way. “ Link: http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/documents/recommender_p…
I've also gathered some blog posts that are very helpful from the admissions people at Ross & McCombs http://masteradmissions.com/recommendations/
A great letter of recommendation offers tangible, specific instances on your leadership ability, so if you need to remind the recommender of some of those examples, you should do so. You can either write out some bullet points that you'd like him or her to include, or you can sit down and be honest: they are asking for a more senior person's opinion on how you would add to the class -- and how you would represent a school that might have a mission of "We educate leaders who make a difference in the world" . That's HBS
You want to have the school understand your impact and influence on your team and on your company. How you, as a person, have stood out from your peers -- beyond the technical. Here's another link that is a classic : http://paloaltoforawhile.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-attain-best-recomm…
so to answer the question, should I have him provide more details, the answer is probably YES
Great Thanks for your comments and concerns!!! Truly appreciated! Unfortunately both of my recommenders have already submitted their recommendations to one of my schools. I guess I just need to make sure recommendations to rest of my schools are better than what they are now!
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