The sign of Four

Talked to the last of my recommenders today. He was very excited to hear I’m trying for my MBA, and wished me all the best. So now, along with the 3 lined up before, I’m hitting a count of FOUR – one recent manager from my current job, two managers from my previous job (which I left 2 yrs ago, mind you), and one whom I worked with for 3 yrs (on community service) but some years back.

I still have the choice of talking to senior client managers I’ve worked with over the last two years - 3 people come to my mind immediately, one from my last client, and two from my current one. But dont know whether I really need them, and will approach them only if very necessary. It wouldn’t look good on my firm’s part since both these are ongoing projects. I’m sure they will give me a good reco, but there’s also a risk word can spread within my firm, which I want to avoid at this stage.

So the only hurdle left is the essay bit. Wish someone could do that for me…..

One good thing that came from my approaching these recommenders was that the level of encouragement I received from them was gr8. I knew these guys liked me and valued my contributions, but never expected them to be so supportive. I even reconfirmed with 2 of my other recommenders (whom I’d talked to more than a month back) and they scolded me that I’d not even started my essays. I feel like talking to them every day now, since that will push me to start my essays, but I know if I call them so often they’ll refuse to write my recos – they’ve got jobs to do, important ones. And at their senior positions, I can’t expect their dose of encouragement to be so regular. How would they be able to rate me high on proactive / self-starter / etc? I wish, though, I had one more manager from my current job, but there’s no one else I can trust to keep this to himself.