Getting A Strong MBA Recommendation Letter

[Music] hi i'm brian from guru sicom today we're going to be talking about how you can ensure that you get a strong letter of recommendation this is a topic that I feel strongly about because as a former professor as someone who's applied to graduate schools and as someone who has worked in the admissions world I've seen common mistakes that people make and importantly I've seen good letters and bad letters and I understand some of the mechanics about how you go about writing strong letters weak letters good letters bad letters I have written strong letters for people and I have written weak letters from people and there's a series of things to think about as you decide who to ask to write a letter of recommendation how to ask them and what to include in that letter of recommendation the first thing to think about is who to ask now one of the most common mistakes that you see people make with letters of recommendation is that they don't actually ask someone who knows them and so if for example you're applying to a business program and during your freshman year you took a business course with a well-known professor and you got an A on it and you say okay I'm gonna have that person write my letter of recommendation but if that course had 200 people in it and you never actually had any one-on-one interaction with the professor there's not actually much that that professor can write about you other than the fact that you got an A in the class and that's really not sufficient so the first thing you want to think about is does this person actually know who you are such that they can write a good letter what does it mean to ask if someone knows who you are first can they speak to your strengths can they even talk about your weaknesses because that's an important thing oftentimes it gets included in letters or letters of recommendation can they tell a specific story about you can they reference some of the work that you've done for them the same thing incidentally is true in professional settings you don't want to go the CEO of your company if he's never met you or if you had only passing interactions with him you're much better going a little bit further down the ladder but having someone write a letter who can pocket length and in detail about the things that you've done the second thing is then this should be obvious but it's a mistake that a lot of people make is that you need to make sure that you go to someone who has no reason to be subjective about your application and here's what I mean I have actually seen people apply using letters of recommendation from a parent now I can tell you that there there's no weight whatsoever that I'm going to put on a letter of recommendation from your mom or dad they love you they're going to think wonderful glowing things about you so if it's someone who has a relationship with you where they are certainly going to be subjective just based purely on that relationship parent relative something like that then don't go to that person for a letter of recommendation and then the last thing to consider is does this person have the kind of stature or position or reputation that will put a positive light on your application now to be honest this is the least important of all of these things because as I've noted before you're much better going lower down the ladder and having your immediate supervisor supervisor write you a letter of recommendation if he knows you and could talk about you as opposed to a CEO who's never met you but all things being equal if you do have someone who is a leader in their field who is a name that people would recognize and respect then it does make sense to go to that person for a letter of recommendation second thing how do you go about asking for a letter of recommendation now when I was a professor one of the things that would annoy me to no end is if I would just get an email that says Johnny doe is applying to Wharton and has requested you to write a letter of recommendation Johnny had never contacted me he just sort of assumed that I would do it now it's true that look writing letters of recommendation it's kind of part of the job of being a professor that being said you still need to go through the process of actually asking and here's a couple of things to think about with that first if you a skinned person do that so if you're in the same city knock on a door talk to the person in person if you can't do it in person do it on the phone and if you can't do it on the phone only then should you do it over email okay and there's a couple of reasons for that first it's simply good manners you're asking a favor from someone so I understand that even in this electronic world that a lot of times these communications are done in email or text but if you can actually sit down with the person the other thing that comes from that is that you can actually have a conversation about what you think your strengths are what your positioning as a candidate is and they can then shape their essay to make sure that it's complementary to your broader application third point do make sure that you are mature and polite in terms of your interactions with the person so understand that it does take a lot of time to write a good letter of recommendation so make sure that you give them sufficient time to do it so typically I say two weeks is a is a good minimum to think about and also make sure that small things like saying thank you after they've submitted the letter all those little interpersonal touches and this all falls under the umbrella of don't just simply assume that someone is going to do it and that they have to do it and that they should all right be grateful be a good human being what I can tell you having written both strong and weak letters of recommendation is that when you actually ask the professor or your work supervisor colleague whoever it is this writing the letter don't just ask will you write me a letter of recommendation ask them would you feel comfortable writing me a strong letter of recommendation make it clear that that's what you want because to be honest as a professor I can write a letter of recommendation for any student for the most part who's taken my class and it will be very obviously written in a way so that when the person reads it they understand oh johnny is not actually a great student he was just a student who took Brian's class all right so ask for a strong letter of recommendation do things like if you have a draft version of your personal statement provide that if you have a draft version of a seat a CV provide that talk to them about what you think your positioning is as a candidate your strategy what do you think your strengths are if there are particular things that you want them to include then I would also ask them to add those things in as well now it's important to remember that you should only ask them to include things that they have knowledge about so if they're if they were your economics professor and you did some charitable activity in Nepal that they had nothing to do with there's no reason for this professor to write about those charitable activities because they don't know about them right focus on the things that they would have knowledge of so that it remains from their perspective and that they can fill out the details okay what to include again like you don't have a ton of latitude sometimes because some professors or some people will just choose to write a letter and whatever input you give them they can ignore or they can accept but try to emphasize a couple of things one are their particular example so this is the providing receipts are there moments in work or class where you demonstrated skills that you are trying to emphasize in your application are there moments that you really want them to reinforce that we're particularly noteworthy and for the most part people will tend to include those things and so the more economic assignment help that you can give to a letter writer so that you're not just turning over the process completely to them it actually helps them write a better letter and it makes it a little bit easier for them and they will appreciate that so do ask them to emphasize certain accomplishments and stories and explain also why they were important and lastly as I said before this is a process that can be very frustrating because you don't have complete control over it but do respect the process from the point of view of do everything you can to help your letter writer write this letter but at the end of the day also understand that they are going to be the ones who are ultimately going to set the conditions under which the letter is going to be written so if they want you to for example submit a draft of that letter to them that they will then revise and rewrite that's fine if they want you to fill out a questionnaire some professors even have things like that that's also fine you at the end of the day need to understand that you are asking them for a favor so make sure that you approach it with that mind set all right thank you very much [Music]