Business Schools understand that revealing your MBA plan might not be met with enthusiasm if you were hired with a specific time horizon in mind. Under such circumstances, you are wise to seek letters from your previous supervisor. But there are 4 scenarios where the current supervisor is a better fit:
1) IMPACTFUL recent experience
I have stopped counting the instances where the client’s career trajectory looked like a typical journey for a Finance, Consulting, or Technology candidate but in the last year or two – the team size the person managed tripled, the international exposure became unique, and the promotions became frequent. For such a candidate, seeking a letter from a previous supervisor can derail admission chances.
2) Leadership Experience
Typically, when you start in a job function, the roles and responsibilities are tied to the functional expertise. Only after a year (at least) do companies gain the confidence to assign you new responsibilities. Unless you receive the opportunity to grow in one organization with a promotion every year, many applicants use a switch in employer to gain unique roles. In that case, the latest roles are likely to be closely tied to your leadership experiences. In MBA application to M7 and T20 programs, leadership becomes the unique differentiating factor from an equally competitive technical applicant.
3) Supplementing Essays and Connecting with Post-MBA Goals
Recommendation letters complement or supplement an Essay. If the current supervisor’s letter supplements your experience and reiterates the messaging that you have the skills for the ambitious post-MBA goals, any complementary skills might diminish the positioning.
I once had a client for whom we were building the case that the non-profit experience she had acquired in a technical capacity had offered her the perspective to switch to a policy side with a Dual Degree MBA program. For her, the non-profit volunteering experience was a crucial missing link to supplement the essay narrative. Had we gone back to a previous supervisor and talked about her engineering skills, the gap in achieving the post-MBA goal in the non-profit space would have still remained.
It is important that you work with MBA Admissions Consultants who have a firm grasp of branding. MBA application is not just about editing essays.
4) Newsworthy Deals/Products/Events
It is no surprise that from 2020 to 2022, all you could read was about how the applicant had risen to the challenges the pandemic posed. And many such narratives worked. We are emotional creatures dancing to the tunes of the current news cycle. Unless you are like me, spending most of your time writing, editing, podcasting, and creating videos, you will interact with peers, friends, family, and professionals from different generations. Each generation has certain priorities and values that dominate in the culture clash of the news cycle. The admissions team is not isolated from the politics of the campus.
You must play to the year’s newsworthy themes. That is why I always advise applicants to focus on a theme first before writing an essay.
2018 - Crypto
2019 – FinTech
2020-2022 – Pandemic
2023 – AI
Finding themes for the recommendation letter is tricky without sharing your post-MBA goals with the supervisor. That is one reason we mention the traits and post-MBA goals in the guideline document. Learn how we approach the recommendation letter editing process.
