Here we need to establish context and the authority of the writer. Question 1: Please provide a brief description of your interaction with the applicant and, if applicable, their role in your organization. Let’s extrapolate from these questions what is really needed provide a stellar recommendation. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant's response. Please describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant.How do the applicant's performance, potential, background, or personal qualities compare to those of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles? Please provide specific examples.Please provide a brief description of your interaction with the applicant and, if applicable, their role in your organization.Here are the three primary questions on the HBS recommendation form: This is relevant even if the candidate is applying for a job. Reading between the lines of their recommendations, it’s easy to see what qualities are most highly prized for business leaders and therefore, what makes a strong recommendation. Let’s let Harvard (and most other MBA programs) show us the way here. She simply cannot speak to that, and any attempts will ring hollow and false. The decision maker needs to understand how you view the candidate and how you value your relationship with her. Perhaps most importantly, only YOU can provide insight into your relationship with her from YOUR perspective. In my experience no candidate has ever written as strong praise for herself as her recommender does. We humans are all innately humble (or at least want to appear that way). It will be impossible for her to speak as highly of herself as a genuine admirer would. Whatever she writes will sound like her, not like someone with many years more experience. She also won’t be able to depart significantly from her own voice. She won’t be able to effectively simulate your authority and write from the perspective – with the priorities, observations, and insights – of someone with your level of seniority.She doesn’t have the perspective you have on her performance and that of others like her.If you think back to the three reasons above that recommendations matter: Incentives, authority, and relationships, you can see that the candidate herself is not going to be able to do a very good job of recommending herself, because… A lot of well meaning individuals will agree to “submit whatever you want me to say, so just write it up and I will submit it.” Particularly, busy senior folks do this, and it’s entirely understandable. Let me debunk a myth of recommendations here. Doing it well will help your colleague tremendously. Any testimonial from someone with whom you have a professional relationship will give them deep insight into this aspect of your character.īeing asked to write a recommendation is a sacred trust. People evaluating you for admission or hire need to know how you manage relationships. If you don’t know how to play well with others, collaborate, and take feedback, your prospects are severely limited. Ultimately, relationships fuel career success more than any other aspect of your life. The decision maker needs to hear from an authority who can benchmark your awesomeness against at least a few and preferably many others. You don’t have the perspective of having managed a lot of people at your level, so even if you could be entirely objective about yourself, you don’t have a good basis for comparison. Or anyway you are just as experienced as you are. Sure, you think you are great – but you’re just a kid. You aren’t the final authority on how awesome you are. Even without lying or hyperbole, your perspective needs a sanity check. It will also lead you to present yourself in the most favorable light. That will lead you to say the right things, or at least the things that you think are the right things. Incentives.Īs a candidate, your incentive is to get in. Why? I think this is true for three reasons.
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