Recommendations...Boss doesn't know you're applying to MBA
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05 Sep 2005, 17:26
Hi Linda,
I'm a Litigation Consultant with a upper tier boutique Consulting firm with aspirations to go to a top ranked (top 15) b school. I have a good GPA (3.5+), from a decent Undergrad (top 35), with 2 years of experience.
What would your advice be to someone who wants to apply to an MBA, but can't ask his/her boss for a recommendation because he has no idea you're applying.
My situation is that my boss could and would give me a great recommendation, but he has no idea I plan on applying. Beyond that, I really think it would be a terrible situation to ask for one because 1) that would be a dead give away I'm planning on leaving, 2) it could potentially alter my promotion/raise at year end since he will think I'm leaving anyway, and 3) it would be completely out of the blue since most people in our profession get licenses (such as CPA, CFE, CVA, CFA, etc) instead of going back to b school.
I would hate to put myself out there (ie applying) and really cheat myself of potentially better schools because I lack a recommendation from my boss.
For further info, the reason why his recommendation is so important and I can't really get it from anyone else is because since I've joined my consulting firm, it has been only me and him. I took this job mainly because of this situation; so I could learn, absorb, grow as much as possible. We have a lot more consultants within our company, but our office was started basically a few months before I came on. My idea was to help "build" this office/location/practice to ramp up my experience for b school. I've been doing this for about 7 months now, was an auditor at a Big 4 prior to this job. The plan was up to the point I start b school, I would have a year and half experience as an auditor and year and half experience lit consultant.
Thanks and look forward to your reply!