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ifountainhead
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Helping a friend 04 Sep 2011, 12:32
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Folks,

I am in a dilemma about a certain situation that I face. I am working in a boutique analytical consulting firm which looks into mortgage delinquencies. As a favour I have also been helping one of my acquaintances in his business which is very different from the daytime work that I do. This acquaintances work is focused on developing solutions for a few focus industries. I have been helping him (for free) in terms of idea generation around his product. I have invested non-trivial amount of effort in this pursuit and feel that I should add this experience to my MBA essays etc.

However I do not have any proof for this except for the acquaintance vouching for my work. :( Since I helped him for free I do not have any receipt or any monetary proof of helping him out. I am wondering if this will be an impediment in adding this experience to my application since the b-schools mention that they will be validating all what has been written through a third party vendor and I am not sure what sort of proofs will stand their test.

Will it work if I add my acquaintance as a one of my recommenders? :?:

Also can I add it as part of my resume?

Please share your experiences.

Thanks,
FTH
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GyanOne
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Helping a friend 04 Sep 2011, 13:07
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I would recommend that you should put this on your resume and mention it on your application. However, it would be unsuitable to ask your friend for a recommendation.
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ifountainhead
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Helping a friend 04 Sep 2011, 20:10
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GyanOne
I would recommend that you should put this on your resume and mention it on your application. However, it would be unsuitable to ask your friend for a recommendation.
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Thanks for your response GyanOne. I understand that it would have been unsuitable for me to ask a friend for a recommendation. However in this case the acquaintance is not a friend but an acquaintance of a friend. My friend had referred me to the acquaintance due to my background in analytics and web based product development.

I was thinking about having him as a recommender for the primary reason that I would have liked him to validate whatever I have written so that it comes out to the adcom that whatever I have mentioned in my essay is for real and I am not BSing around.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
FTH
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cheetarah1980
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Helping a friend 04 Sep 2011, 20:42
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ifountainhead
GyanOne
I would recommend that you should put this on your resume and mention it on your application. However, it would be unsuitable to ask your friend for a recommendation.

Thanks for your response GyanOne. I understand that it would have been unsuitable for me to ask a friend for a recommendation. However in this case the acquaintance is not a friend but an acquaintance of a friend. My friend had referred me to the acquaintance due to my background in analytics and web based product development.

I was thinking about having him as a recommender for the primary reason that I would have liked him to validate whatever I have written so that it comes out to the adcom that whatever I have mentioned in my essay is for real and I am not BSing around.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
FTH
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The adcom is going to give you the benefit of the doubt. They don't expect you to have proof within your application of every endeavor you mention. For example, I'm going to write an essay about one of my experiences getting sponsors for a community event. None of my recommenders are going to talk about it since they weren't involved. I wouldn't worry about trying to prove that you are really doing what you say you are.
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ifountainhead
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Helping a friend 05 Sep 2011, 09:34
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cheetarah1980
ifountainhead
GyanOne
I would recommend that you should put this on your resume and mention it on your application. However, it would be unsuitable to ask your friend for a recommendation.

Thanks for your response GyanOne. I understand that it would have been unsuitable for me to ask a friend for a recommendation. However in this case the acquaintance is not a friend but an acquaintance of a friend. My friend had referred me to the acquaintance due to my background in analytics and web based product development.

I was thinking about having him as a recommender for the primary reason that I would have liked him to validate whatever I have written so that it comes out to the adcom that whatever I have mentioned in my essay is for real and I am not BSing around.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
FTH

The adcom is going to give you the benefit of the doubt. They don't expect you to have proof within your application of every endeavor you mention. For example, I'm going to write an essay about one of my experiences getting sponsors for a community event. None of my recommenders are going to talk about it since they weren't involved. I wouldn't worry about trying to prove that you are really doing what you say you are.
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Interesting point. However consider a case where you have two similar candidates where 1 has some sort of proof of his extracurricular activity whereas the other does not. If you were part of the adcom and believe both the person to have a equal chance who would you rather go with? I think you would like to go with the one that offers some sort of proof.

Given that I have heard about a lot of applicants BSing around in their applications I believe even the adcoms would be cognizant of the problem and looking for some sort of validation would help them in weeding out the issue.

Let me know your thoughts.

FTH
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cheetarah1980
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Helping a friend 05 Sep 2011, 10:48
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ifountainhead
cheetarah1980
ifountainhead

Thanks for your response GyanOne. I understand that it would have been unsuitable for me to ask a friend for a recommendation. However in this case the acquaintance is not a friend but an acquaintance of a friend. My friend had referred me to the acquaintance due to my background in analytics and web based product development.

I was thinking about having him as a recommender for the primary reason that I would have liked him to validate whatever I have written so that it comes out to the adcom that whatever I have mentioned in my essay is for real and I am not BSing around.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
FTH

The adcom is going to give you the benefit of the doubt. They don't expect you to have proof within your application of every endeavor you mention. For example, I'm going to write an essay about one of my experiences getting sponsors for a community event. None of my recommenders are going to talk about it since they weren't involved. I wouldn't worry about trying to prove that you are really doing what you say you are.

Interesting point. However consider a case where you have two similar candidates where 1 has some sort of proof of his extracurricular activity whereas the other does not. If you were part of the adcom and believe both the person to have a equal chance who would you rather go with? I think you would like to go with the one that offers some sort of proof.

Given that I have heard about a lot of applicants BSing around in their applications I believe even the adcoms would be cognizant of the problem and looking for some sort of validation would help them in weeding out the issue.

Let me know your thoughts.

FTH
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My point is that you can't prove every single thing you say. You're not going to have a letter of rec from every single employer/job you've had, extracurricular you've participated in, and hobby you've explored. If you say you ran 5 marathons are you going to submit your finisher's certificates to prove you actually did it? Probably not. If you say you're an avid mountain climber how will you prove that? My point is that no one can provide proof for everything. Give the name of the acquaintance's business along with a brief description and call it a day.