HKUST Letter of Recommendation Questions
- How long and in what capacity have you known the candidate? (No word limit)
- If this is a work-related reference, in what position is/was the candidate employed and for how long? (No word limit)
- What do you consider to be the candidate’s principal strengths/talents? (No word limit)
- What do you consider to be the candidate’s weaknesses or areas that need improvement? (No word limit)
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HKUST Letter of Recommendation Example-1
1. How long and in what capacity have you known the candidate?
I have known Shreya for a little over four years in a professional capacity. She joined Swiggy as an Associate Product Manager in mid-2019 and eventually rose to the position of Product Manager on our Growth and Retention team. I have worked directly with her in my role as Director of Product and have overseen her progress on multiple cross-functional projects involving product development, user lifecycle strategies, and digital marketing initiatives. Over this period, I’ve seen her evolve into a thoughtful, resilient, and action-oriented professional who is ready for the next academic and professional challenge.
2. If this is a work-related reference, in what position is/was the candidate employed and for how long?
Shreya worked at Swiggy from July 2019 to December 2023, starting as an Associate Product Manager and advancing to the role of Product Manager by 2021. She played a key role in initiatives that enhanced user retention and engagement, particularly for our core food delivery app and Swiggy One subscription platform.
In her last year, she collaborated on joint marketing initiatives with teams from Freshworks, helping us roll out a CRM-enabled feedback loop that improved conversion from re-engagement campaigns by 18%. Her ability to move between product, marketing, and operations with clarity and cohesion made her a valuable asset to both internal and external stakeholders. She was also nominated for our internal leadership development program in 2022.
3. What do you consider to be the candidate’s principal strengths/talents?
Shreya brings together three traits that distinguish her: analytical rigor, team empathy, and a quiet drive for excellence.
One of her most impactful strengths is her data-informed problem-solving. For example, when retention rates dipped for our newer city cohorts, Shreya led a multi-variable cohort analysis, combined it with user behavior interviews, and introduced a loyalty nudge feature. Her efforts helped boost 30-day repeat order frequency by nearly 10%, and the framework she developed is now used across teams for city segmentation strategies.
She is also a strong cross-functional collaborator. Whether working with Swiggy’s delivery fleet teams, engineers, designers, or even external vendors from Freshworks or Razorpay, she balances task ownership with approachability. She builds trust by listening actively, ensuring follow-through, and defusing tension in high-pressure discussions.
Lastly, she’s genuinely curious—always enrolling in MOOCs, attending design sprints outside her core domain, and mentoring younger colleagues. This hunger to learn and contribute makes her a powerful long-term asset to any team or program.
4. What do you consider to be the candidate’s weaknesses or areas that need improvement?
Shreya can be overly self-critical, especially when a project doesn’t meet internal expectations, even if external metrics are within acceptable ranges. For instance, after a product rollout that didn’t meet adoption targets, she took full responsibility—spending weekends digging into telemetry data and user feedback. While her ownership is admirable, I’ve often encouraged her to adopt a more balanced view that distinguishes between controllable and external factors. She’s made conscious improvements here by taking a more data-led, team-reflective approach during postmortems.
Another area of growth is her assertiveness in high-stakes stakeholder discussions. Early on, she tended to defer during conflicting viewpoints with senior partners. However, I’ve seen her grow into her voice—most notably when she defended a feature delay in front of executive leadership, making a strong case for quality over speed. Her confidence has grown steadily with experience, and I believe an international MBA program will help her refine this further in a global context.
HKUST Letter of Recommendation Example-2
1) How long and in what capacity have you known the candidate?
I am a manager at Deloitte Consulting LLP. I have worked with Akanksha for a little more than a year as her direct supervisor.
2) If this is a work-related reference, in what position is/was the candidate employed and for how long?
Akanksha has been working with Deloitte Consulting LLP for the past 4 years. Last year, she was promoted to a Consultant’s role.
3) What do you consider to be the candidate’s principal strengths/talents?
Since last year, after being promoted as a consultant, Akanksha has been mostly involved in client-facing roles. I think one of her principal strengths is collaborating with cross-functional teams involving clients and other stakeholders in the project.
I observed this strength of Akanksha when she was working as a tech lead on the CDM Smith project. The requirements of the project were little unclear. Akanksha put in commendable efforts in collaborating and coordinating with the client and our teams in USA, Delhi and Bengaluru to get the requirements clarified. Her apt handling of conflicts between client and our on-site and local teams ensured that everyone was on the same page throughout the project. She acted as a single point of contact and stretched her working hours to manage project work between globally dispersed teams in different time zones. With Akanksha’s commitment and efficient collaboration, the team managed to deliver the entire project ahead of time schedule. This project showcased her potential to lead future projects and fill in the shoes of a senior consultant.
Another key strength of Akanksha, I really appreciate, is her diversified interest in Deloitte’s extracurricular activities. She has been leading Deloitte’s education-focused CSR team for 3 years in partnership with an NGO named Literacy India. She leads a team of 20 volunteers for all projects related to child education which includes fundraising, organizing volunteer visits, and other events. To me, this displays her versatile nature and self-motivation. It’s always a pleasure to have such a team member who keeps the entire team motivated towards benevolent causes.
Overall, I think it’s her social work experience that has really helped her hone her collaboration and project management skills, which reflects in her professional work as well and this makes her stand out among her peers in the organization.
4) What do you consider to be the candidate’s weaknesses or areas that need improvement?
Until now, Akanksha has had a purely technical background with limited exposure to the business aspect of projects. One significant area where I feel she needs to improve is her overall understanding of the business structures and workflow processes.
In one instance, on the CDM Smith project, because of her inexperience and lack of understanding regarding business flow processes, she was not able to correctly map client’s project division rules to its accounting structure. The mapping process required a deeper understanding of the client’s overall business flow and hierarchy. She missed certain scenarios related to client’s intracompany projects in her solution design and this resulted in the failure of 2 other connected applications. She should have asked me or her functional peers in the team for an initial walkthrough to help her get acquainted with the client’s business structure.
In our first annual performance review, we discussed her need to start working on her business knowledge as it is crucial to moving ahead into a senior consultant’s role, where she will be expected to handle overall project delivery and guide her team. I also explained to her that she should not hesitate and be more open to reaching out to experts in order to expand her knowledge base.
She took the feedback positively. I have observed a significant change in her work methodology and she now freely reaches out to her peers to seek help where needed. Over time she has shown great improvement in her understanding of workflow processes in different business modules. Akanksha is a talented and hardworking girl, highly capable of achieving her career goals. I feel her decision to pursue an MBA at this point makes perfect sense as it will help her take her expertise to the next level.
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HKUST Letter of Recommendation Example-3
1. How long and in what capacity have you known the candidate?
I have known Nikhil for approximately three years, during which time I served as his manager at Tata Electronics Pvt. Ltd., where he worked in our Advanced Manufacturing and Process Optimization team. I was responsible for his onboarding, project assignments, and performance evaluations. Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with him on various high-impact projects in operations, quality engineering, and cross-functional efficiency initiatives. He reported directly to me for the majority of his tenure at Tata Electronics, and we continued to stay in professional contact after he moved on to his next role.
2. If this is a work-related reference, in what position is/was the candidate employed and for how long?
Nikhil worked at Tata Electronics from February 2021 to August 2023, in the capacity of a Senior Engineer – Process & Manufacturing. Prior to joining Tata Electronics, he spent two years at Bosch India (2019–2021) as a Graduate Engineering Trainee and then Production Engineer, where he handled shop-floor planning, quality checks, and supply-side coordination. He began his career at L&T Technology Services (2018–2019), where he was involved in CAD design and early-stage process documentation for clients in the energy sector.
At Tata Electronics, Nikhil was responsible for improving yield efficiency in a high-volume, precision manufacturing line, supporting daily operations, troubleshooting, and developing SOPs that improved our throughput by nearly 7% over a two-quarter period. He also took the lead in a project to reduce production waste using Six Sigma methodology and cross-functional audits.
3. What do you consider to be the candidate’s principal strengths/talents?
Nikhil’s core strength lies in his analytical thinking combined with hands-on execution. He has a knack for identifying patterns in data that others often overlook and is highly structured in his problem-solving approach. For instance, in one of our quarterly cost-optimization cycles, he proposed a fixture redesign that not only improved tooling lifespan but also reduced unit processing time by 9 seconds—translating to significant gains across multiple lines.
Another notable quality is his adaptability. Coming from a traditional mechanical engineering background, he proactively upskilled himself in tools like Python and Power BI to better interpret production metrics and automation data. His self-learning initiative allowed him to bridge the gap between engineering and data, making him one of the few team members able to work seamlessly with both production managers and our analytics team.
Additionally, Nikhil demonstrates consistent leadership potential, even without formal authority. He naturally steps into coordination roles, mediating between functions such as quality control, maintenance, and supply chain. His calm demeanor and thorough preparation have earned him the respect of both floor-level technicians and senior management.
4. What do you consider to be the candidate’s weaknesses or areas that need improvement?
Nikhil is sometimes hesitant to speak up in large, senior-level meetings, particularly when controversial trade-offs or strategic decisions are being discussed. While he is deeply thoughtful and well-prepared, he occasionally holds back his opinions until after the meeting, when it’s too late to shape the direction. I’ve provided him direct feedback on this, and in his last few months with us, I noticed a clear improvement—especially when he successfully advocated for a quality process change during a cross-departmental review involving our VP.
Another area of development is his commercial perspective. As an engineer, he naturally focuses on technical metrics—efficiency, precision, throughput—but occasionally misses the broader business impact, such as customer lifetime value or margin expansion. That said, his application to HKUST reflects a clear awareness of this gap and a proactive intent to strengthen it. I believe the MBA will round out his already solid foundation and give him the strategic toolkit he needs to evolve into a strong business leader.
HKUST Letter of Recommendation Example-4
1. How long and in what capacity have you known the candidate?
I have had the pleasure of knowing Suraj for over five years now. Our paths first crossed during a professional collaboration, and later, he joined ASCA Chartered Accountants in early 2023 as a Senior Partner in our Audit & Assurance division. In my capacity as a Senior Partner at the firm, I’ve worked with him extensively across internal firm strategy, high-value audits, and consulting engagements. I’ve also observed him closely in his roles as a team leader, client liaison, educator, and process innovator.
2. If this is a work-related reference, in what position is/was the candidate employed and for how long?
Suraj is currently a Senior Partner – Audit & Assurance at ASCA Chartered Accountants (Jan 2023 – Present), where he leads a team of 35 professionals and oversees key audit and forensic mandates. Before this, he was a Partner at Shetty & Dsouza Chartered Accountants for nearly six years, where he played an instrumental role in startup consulting, credit risk advisory, and forensic assignments for public and private sector clients.
His resume reflects a clear growth trajectory. He has unearthed financial frauds totaling over $3 million, led digital transformation initiatives for over a dozen rural banks, and pioneered a consulting funnel for RSU taxation, saving clients over $2 million in taxes. Suraj has also authored textbooks and trained over 15,000 students through an education platform—making him as much a thought leader as a finance professional.
3. What do you consider to be the candidate’s principal strengths/talents?
Suraj’s strengths are multifaceted, but I would begin with his clarity of thought and structured execution. In forensic investigations—often involving incomplete data and stakeholder resistance—he has consistently displayed sound judgment, ethical rigor, and an ability to connect dots with minimal guidance.
He is also a natural educator and mentor. I have seen firsthand how he designed training modules not just for junior auditors but also for client-side teams during system transitions. His ability to communicate complex tax or audit implications in layman’s terms has helped us build trust with clients and regulators alike.
Suraj is also deeply future-oriented. His decision to partner with Zoho Corporation and migrate 100+ businesses to cloud accounting solutions not only modernized operations for our clients but also opened the door to international consulting engagements. He is agile, curious, and unafraid to innovate within traditionally conservative industries.
Perhaps most importantly, he is values-driven. Through his charitable foundation, he has helped digitally empower underprivileged schoolchildren and conducted more than 80 learning sessions in remote areas. That sense of purpose permeates everything he does, and I believe it’s part of what makes him a steady, principled leader.
4. What do you consider to be the candidate’s weaknesses or areas that need improvement?
Suraj’s focus on precision—while an asset in audit and forensic roles—sometimes results in slower decision-making in ambiguous environments. For example, during a fast-paced client acquisition initiative, he was overly cautious about contractual structures, which delayed onboarding by a few days. While his caution is often warranted, I’ve encouraged him to adopt a more risk-calibrated approach depending on context. To his credit, he has shown improvement in recent months by trusting deputies with preliminary assessments before applying his final filter.
Additionally, Suraj occasionally underestimates his ability to influence senior stakeholders, especially in unfamiliar or global settings. Though he is articulate and well-prepared, I’ve noticed he sometimes lets more assertive voices dominate early in a discussion. I believe the HKUST MBA experience—particularly the exposure to a diverse peer group and case-based leadership curriculum—will help him grow into a more confident and outward-facing strategist.
