EDHEC Letter of Recommendation Questions
1. How long have you known the candidate? In what connection?
2. In your mind, what are the candidate’s most revealing qualities?
3. What are the candidate’s most significant weaknesses?
4. Please comment further on your judgement and add other information you think may be useful.
5. Do you know of any purely emotional factors to be kept in mind regarding the candidate’s effective participation to the master of Business Administration – MBA? If so could you give some instances.
EDHEC Letter Of Recommendation Example-1
1. How long have you known the candidate? In what connection?
I was an Application development lead in Accenture Solutions Private Limited and was Swarna’s supervisor for 1.5 years. I have seen her professional development from a fresh graduate to a team leader for major releases in production. She was a key member of our project optimization processes which resulted in a 40% reduction in the cost of the project and was highly appreciated by senior management.
2. In your mind, what are the candidate's most revealing qualities?
Swarna is an ambitious and hardworking person. She sets high standards for herself and always stepped up to take added responsibilities. I remember one major production release, because of a team member’s mistake we had to redeploy and repeat the whole process of 20 hours. She took the initiative to lead the team and worked consistently for 18 hours at office to complete the process. For her commitment and delivery on crucial projects like these, she got appreciated by clients and got promoted with the highest rating because of her hard work and dedication.
3. What are the candidate's most significant weaknesses?
One area I believe, Swarna could develop further is people management and dealing with high-pressure situations. She has done a good job of dealing with small teams and interacting across cross-functional teams. I believe she can take bigger responsibilities and she is still in the learning phase when it comes to people management. I believe a reputed MBA program like SDA Bocconi’s would give her enough out of class opportunities to develop her leadership skills even further.
4. Please comment further on your judgement and add other information you think may be useful.
Swarna has a great rapport with everyone in the team and other functional teams. She has successfully organized and anchored many events, e.g. during the IPL cricket tournament, she organized a fantasy league within the project and brought innovative ideas to keep the entire team engaged. These activities have given her good exposure and I have always heard positive feedback about her contributions and spirit in organizing such activities.
She has led multiple teams in the past but I believe a formal business education would help her shape those skills and be at her best while leading a large team or high pressure situations.
5. Do you know of any purely emotional factors to be kept in mind regarding the candidate’s effective participation to the master of Business Administration - MBA? If so could you give some instances.
I strongly believe, that a Graduate business education would help her develop excellent leadership skills required to lead large cross, functional teams. Further, she would acquire great immersive experience working in diverse teams, experience required to be a successful business manager in any large or small organization.
Apart from experiential skills, she would gain important functional knowledge in marketing, strategy and finance which is very important for her career aspirations.
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EDHEC Letter of Recommendation Example – 2
1. How long have you known the applicant?
I have known Rohit (Name Changed) since October 2014.
2. In what capacity?
Rohit (Name Changed) joined Siemens as a Graduate Trainee Engineer in August 2014. He was sent as an on-site engineer in Oct 2014 to 2×67.5 MW BPPL Thermal Power Plant at Cuttack, Odisha, India, and I was the Site Manager at that time of that site.
He has also worked with me at 2x350MW MEPL Thermal Power Plant, Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, India. I was a site Manager there also. In total Rohit (Name Changed) has worked with me from Oct 2014 to Sept 2016. In Oct 2016, Rohit (Name Changed) got transferred to a different profile but we are in touch still now and I have a very cordial relation with him as a Mentor.
3. What do you consider the applicant’s outstanding talents?
I believe one of Rohit’s (Name Changed) principal strengths is his people handling skills.
The work of an On-Site engineer requires a lot of dealing with the Blue collared workers. There is a target to execute (Install, Test, and Commission) the project on time, properly handle material, maintain quality of execution. I have observed that Rohit (Name Changed) from starting maintained a bond with the workers and treated them respectfully and was able to get the work done from them. I also observed that Rohit (Name Changed) was liked and respected by the workers working under him.
For example: At our BPPL site, we had an Air Insulated Sub-Station to be installed, tested, and commissioned in 15 months of the time duration. The scope of work was quite exhaustive and there was tremendous pressure from the customer side as well. Rohit (Name Changed) after showing a lot of interest and learning from the complete documents, drawings were given the charge for the testing and commissioning of the substation. The Installation work of substation took a total of 13 months. To complete the testing and commissioning of the substation was a big task in just 2 months left. He engaged all the workers tied with him, held toolbox talks with them, cleared all their doubts, guided them patiently, motivated them. He along with his team of workers worked keeping the timeline in mind and finally managed to test and pre-commission the substation on time. I feel this experience gave a lot of exposure to Rohit (Name Changed) and this wouldn’t have been possible for him without the support of his workers. The client also appreciated this young guy.
Another key strength of Rohit (Name Changed) is his sincerity and ownership with which he works. The role of an on- site engineer apart from the execution of the project is also to contribute to maintaining a Good Cash Flow by getting the RA (Running Account) Bills passed from the client-side Engineer-in-charge. For eg: At our BPPL site, we had a target from the management in Nov 2015 for the cash collection of 1’5 Mil Eur by end of Dec 2015. The engineer in charge of the client-side had a habit of delaying the approval process. Rohit (Name Changed) continuously followed up and pushed him and tried hard from his side for the target to be completed on time. Rohit (Name Changed) took ownership, prepared all the documents clearly, monitored the sub-contractors and workers to cross-check the quality of work completed, and convinced the client to get his signatures on the RA bill. Finally, the payment was credited to the Siemens Account. I feel that Rohit (Name Changed) took the task with maturity and enthusiasm and was praised by the management.
4. In which areas could the applicant exhibit growth or improvement?
While Rohit (Name Changed) has been a very hard working individual and he was a great asset for the execution team at the site, in some of his engagements/calls with the Siemens RHQ (Regional Headquarter) Management regarding the progress of work and regarding the further planning, he was a bit lost and got under pressure that he is in a meeting with the management.
After further discussion with him, I understood that he was not able to anticipate the next steps of project planning and the reason that he was not able to do so because he lacked the holistic thinking as he was new in the job. I firmly believe that having a holistic view is of utmost importance to be a good decision taker which is required a lot in any job. In a profile as that of an on-site engineer, you have to keep on thinking about the next steps, what can be the problems that may come up, and how to keep up the work at a good pace or how to expedite the work. Since Rohit (Name Changed) was always interested to improve himself and learn new things, I gave him constructive feedback and asked him to think openly and write down any point that comes up in his mind about the project planning and next action steps. So, he continued this exercise for about 2-3 months and I felt that he is improving.
Taking my feedback positively and acting as per my feedback turned it around completely with increased clarity regarding the project planning and proper understanding of the reasonable timelines to complete a particular job. He started having a small meeting with his workers every day about the daily tasks, started maintaining a diary to note the anticipated problems, issues, hardships that many come in the future. He also developed a habit to discuss with one or the other senior colleague about his plans, problems, etc. He also started discussing his planning with the engineer – in-charge from the client-side to better understand their requirements and act accordingly. Now also when I meet him and discuss things with him, he thinks better than before and is more holistic in his views. With an MBA program, I feel he can further Polish this skill.
5. Please comment on the applicant’s capacity for graduate study in business and on his or her potential for a successful management career (if you prefer you may answer this question in a separate letter).
I believe Rohit (Name Changed) has good exposure to working with clients and handling a big team of blue-collar contractors. He has made really good progress in his career so far. But to grow further from here I think Rohit (Name Changed) needs a formal business education and leadership training to actually lead client engagements. His responsibilities have grown and it would be nice for him to upskill himself to handle the next set of challenges.
I think a graduate school is a perfect place that can complement his technical knowledge with business knowledge. A reputed MBA like HHL’s can help Rohit (Name Changed) improve his soft skills in terms of working with international clients and leading a diverse team.
If selected Rohit (Name Changed) would be a great fit into the school and post-school he has the potential to craft a successful career in management.
