IESE Letter of Recommendation Questions 2023-24
- How do the candidate’s performance, potential, or personal qualities compare to those of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles? Please provide specific examples. (300 words)
- Please describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant’s response. (250 words)
IESE Letter of Recommendation Example – 1
1. How do the candidate’s performance, potential, or personal qualities compare to those of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles? Please provide specific examples. (300 words)
The most outstanding professional strength of Naina’s (Name Changed) personality which makes her stand out from other well-qualified individuals is her willingness to take challenging initiatives.
I noticed Naina’s (Name Changed) pro-active nature during the graduate onboarding Bootcamp training in Deloitte. Based on her outstanding performance, I selected her in my team on the Omnicare project. She has a steep learning curve and a natural drive to take initiatives. The Omnicare project was running behind schedule and budget due to manual errors in the code migration process. Naina (Name Changed) proposed a solution to automate the code migration process which could remove the chances of manual errors and increase the team’s efficiency. The senior management really liked the idea and asked her if she would be willing to take this as an additional responsibility to design the application. She took the initiative and designed the application to automate the code migration process. The application performed flawlessly and was used during all Omnicare project’s code migrations.
Due to Naina’s (Name Changed) exceptional initiative and technical expertise, our team established a fully automated code migration process that eliminated all migration errors. This helped speed up the project and the team was able to meet the stipulated deadlines and budget. The application designed by Naina (Name Changed) was highly appreciated by the client and senior management. In fact, the senior management asked her to write an internal white paper on the application which can be passed along to different teams. She also presented the paper at Deloitte Eminence meet from where the application was approved to be used in 3 service lines of Deloitte.
Throughout the 2 years we worked together, Naina (Name Changed) showed great enthusiasm for working on a variety of challenging projects which added great value to my team and Deloitte. She performed beyond my expectations and became one of my most trusted resources.
2. Please describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant’s response. (250 words)
Sometimes Naina (Name Changed) tends to stretch her limits and take on lot more responsibilities than her experience allows her to. During the Omnicare project, I appreciated her energy but at times because of her inexperience, she could not estimate the effort and time needed to handle a particular job. For instance, she asked me to delegate the responsibility for common error handler utility to her, which I advised would be too difficult for her to handle given her already stretched work scope. Enthusiastically, she persuaded me and I assigned the task to her. It proved to be a tough task for her to manage and became a bottleneck. As a result, we ran into slight delays on the project. I had to take off the responsibility from her work scope and explain to her that she should not take up responsibilities blindly. She took this feedback positively and over time she has learned to manage her responsibilities and expectations very well.
During our 2 years of the working relationship, Naina (Name Changed) always incorporated constructive feedback from seniors and displayed a sharp growth curve as a professional. After our 2nd annual appraisal, I recommended her for promotion to the consultant level. I am proud to mention that last year, she was among the top 3 candidates who were given fast track promotion to consultant role out of a total batch size of 80 business technology analysts.
IESE Letter of Recommendation Example – 2
1. How do the candidate’s performance, potential, or personal qualities compare to those of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles? Please provide specific examples. (300 words)
I think Naina (Name Changed) really stands out in collaborating with cross-functional teams involving clients and other stakeholders in the project.
I observed this strength of Naina (Name Changed) when she was working as a tech lead on the CDM Smith project. The requirements of the project were a little unclear. Naina (Name Changed) put in commendable efforts in collaborating and coordinating with the client and our teams in the USA, Delhi, and Bengaluru to get the requirements clarified. Her apt handling of conflicts between the 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 Naina’s (Name Changed) 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 Naina (Name Changed), 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.
2. Please describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant’s response. (250 words)
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 the 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 the 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. 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. Naina (Name Changed) 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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