Recommender weakness question

Question

My boss just sent me a copy of his recommendation and for his perceived weakness shyness: he stated that in large projects with several senior execs I had a tendency to take a step back, but not the quite the opposite of for lower-profile projects where I would see things from start to finish. He stated that he thought b-school would a good way to help me overcome this weakness and help take my career to the next level. He said he would change it if would hurt my chances of making it into business school. I feel like this could be a ding against me especially at the top 10 schools. Am I over thinking this? Thoughts?

MBAPrepCoach · Answer

theoryguy  I don't know how the letter is written, but this sounds like a FANTASTIC WEAKNESS. I have a client who interviewed at HBS a couple weeks ago whos recommender stated the same. It's genuine, not some bullshit like you're a perfectionist, and it is also a way to demonstrate how you will benefit from b-school, which is something they actually really care about. I'm wondering, what kind of weakness were you hoping for?

Important note on recs: think through specific anecdotes you would like them to discuss and outline those for them. Choose anecdotes where they have observed you model the qualities that business schools are seeking! Leadership, teamwork, etc. For weakness ones, make sure they tell the story beginning/middle/end in chronological order. SPECIFIC ANECDOTES will win the game. Backward looking generalizations and sunny adjectives will be of no consequence.

willacethis · Answer

Hi MBAPrepCoach

My recommender has written "drive to exceed expectations" as my strength- he mentioned an example of how I did something more than required and what impact it created.

For the weakness, he has mentioned something like "because he tries to exceed expectations, he sometimes hesitates to ask for help"- he mentioned an example about how I didn't seek for a clarification from a senior and later ended up missing a deadline because of that.

Basically, my weakness is a different interpretation of my strength. Could you please share your opinion on the same?

Thank you!

MBAPrepCoach · Answer

Definitely that type of thing works really well because it's actually the case that often our strength is also a weakness it's just a matter of degree so something like where conscientiousness becomes anal-retentiveness. Confidence in excess is arrogance that kind of idea. But in this case I don't even really map the claim to the activity exactly. So if you were to fail to get clarification from someone I think that would be more like related to confidence or being afraid of how it will look if you ask more questions something related to self assuredness or insecurity. I don't have all the information but it doesn't seem quite right to me that you failing to get clarification is something around being extra driven.

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MBAbot · Answer

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Recommender weakness question

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