THE IDEAL LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION (LOR) SCENARIO
Let’s say you’re starting your MBA application essays this week, you won't need to approach your boss today or two weeks from today regarding your Letter’s of Recommendation (LOR). You don’t want to approach them too early and let the cat out of the bag that you’re applying to business school. You also don’t want to approach your boss too late —that being September right before all the Round 1 deadlines. This will only give them a few weeks to complete the LOR's and it might be a big surprise to them. Angry boss - not ideal!
Approach them earlier than not
What MBA applicants should be doing right now earlier on in the application process (without letting the cat out of the bag) is approach your boss. Only do this if you think your boss is going to be receptive to you applying to business school.
You will know whether or not to approach your boss at your job for an LOR. Reasons include, A) you’re not the first person leaving your job to go to business school. B) Maybe your boss went to business school himself/herself. Or, C) maybe it’s customary at your place of work that after three years you’re off to business school. Bottom line is, just approach them earlier than not.
You don’t necessarily have to give them anything initially (the questions or bullet points of your experience or your resume). Instead, just gage him or her as to how supportive they are and then you can gage what they want or need from you to help them.
When a boss wants nothing
What is scary, is when a boss wants nothing. When your boss does not want or need anything from you to help them with your LOR. Even if your boss loves you. They forget things, they are managing other people, they may have a completely different set of projects, and they just forget. Therefore, you want to put together a sheet that has all the LOR questions. These usually include:
An introduction question (usually 50 words): How do you know the applicant? How do you interact?
Question #1 (300-500 words): What are the applicant’s strengths compared to people in similar positions?
Question #2: What constructive feedback have you given the applicant and what was their response? In other words, how have they improved?
The first initial coffee talk
So, when you approach them, at the first initial coffee talk you could say something to this effect. “Hey I’m considering applying to business school and I just wanted to kind of gage you and see if you’d be willing to provide me a recommendation.” Hopefully, you’re having this conversation with your current direct boss. And hopefully they would love to help you out.
Write down what you’ve done and what you think should be included
Now you can ask them what they want to see from you. You would want to tell them (if it’s ok with them) that you’re going to provide them a word document with all the letter of recommendation questions, from all the target MBA schools.
In the same document, you’re going to put down your bullet points of what you’ve done and what you think you should include. This does not only have to come from the reviews that you’ve gotten from your boss. This could also come from tidbits and anecdotes from emails or notes from the projects you’ve worked on or delivered.
Put all of this in bullet points, send it to your boss, and let him take a look at it. It should look something like this:
I did this for you, boss, working on this project, on these dates, and Bill from accounting said this, and Sue from finance said this, and the client said I was a breath of fresh air… whatever went on there, put it in writing.
Also, write down the anecdotes. What was your impact, your role, your title, the dates, what was so difficult? What were the challenges, what were your specific deliverables and what were specific things you owned and lead? Did you step up to assume more authority?
This would be the ideal Letters of Recommendation situation, but of course, this is far from realistic. That’s why you should keep your eyes peeled for the next blog posts later this week. Why you Should Never Write your own LOR’s and What happens if your work doesn’t support you going off to business school?