mytwotalents

I will post twice on this, but here is how I picked my first recommendation / career progress writer.

#1: His family hosted my dad when he spoke at their church back in the early 90s. Years later, I am a senior in High School and he is the head of the business department of a college. I visit and after a great breakfast I am sold on the school. He gets to know me extremely well and is one of the most challenging forces in my life, stretching and pushing me over and over again. We stay in touch post graduation and when the time comes to apply I naturally turn to him. By now a decade has passed (with 4 years in college seeing me every day pretty much) and he knows me very well.

Do not make the mistake of going with the new head of sales or research scientist because of a title or because he is an alumni - does she knows how you react when you are pushed? When you succeed beyond expectations, when you fail? When personal matters affect you (for me it was a breakup plus job worries). Can he remember you when you had a different hairstyle, car, major, job, significant other?

To this day I have no idea what he wrote, but as far as speaking honestly and strongly about me he had an array of experiences, pictures, memories, jokes, and arguments to help him. Of course you should provide a biography with pointers and stories - but if you need to fully coach someone, not only will the adcomm probably figure that out, it also won’t be the best representation of who you are.

*when I first started researching getting into top 10 mba schools, I was very interested by how everyone spoke about the non-technical, touchy-feely, holistic nature of applying to these schools. I was skeptical to be honest. But it is true: you walk around for hours thinking of your essays, thinking of who you are, what is most important to you, why one school over another, what is your biggest success, is it really worth the money, and finally - how do you communicate a whole 20 or 30 years through less than 10 double-spaced pages or four powerpoint slides?

Don’t fear the process, embrace it…