Your Recommenders Don't Know What to Write. That's Your Problem to Fix.

Most applicants treat recommenders as passive agents. They ask politely, send a resume, and assume the recommender will figure out what to say. The result is a letter full of generic praise that adds nothing to the application.

Strong applicants treat recommenders as active team members who need a briefing, a direction, and in some cases a draft. The difference in output quality is significant. And it's entirely within your control.

The problem is not your recommender's willingness or ability to write a strong letter. The problem is that you haven't told them what narrative you're building. They don't know which version of you to describe, so they describe all of you, and that produces a letter that is technically positive but strategically useless.

Here's how to fix it.

Why Recommenders Default to Generic Praise

A recommender who hasn't been briefed does what any reasonable person does: they write about what they know. What they know is your work on a specific project, your grade in their course, your performance during a summer internship. None of that is connected to a narrative arc unless you connect it for them.

This isn't incompetence on their part. It's a vacuum of direction on yours.

Left to their own devices, recommenders write about your skills, your personality, and your performance. They say "strong analytical skills" and "great team player" and "always goes above and beyond." These phrases appear in thousands of letters every cycle. They don't move your application because they don't reinforce anything specific about who you are and what you're building.

The committees aren't looking for proof that you're competent. Competence is assumed in a competitive pool. They're looking for corroboration of a specific narrative. If you haven't given your recommender that narrative, they can't corroborate it.

The Difference Between Sending a Resume and Giving a Brief

Sending your resume is not a brief. It's raw material. A resume tells your recommender what you did. It tells them nothing about what story you're telling in your application or what angle you need them to reinforce.

A brief is something different. It says: here is what I'm writing about in my essays, here is the specific narrative I'm building, and here is how I need you to frame me.

Let me be concrete about what that looks like.

Without a brief, a recommender writing for a finance-track applicant might produce: "Michael is one of the most analytical interns I've managed. He built a model that saved the team significant time and consistently delivered work above expectations for his level."

That's a solid letter. It doesn't help much.

With a brief, the same recommender produces: "Michael came in with sharp technical instincts, but what stood out over the summer was how quickly he shifted from executing tasks to driving the direction of the analysis. He pushed back on our initial framing of the acquisition target, identified a flaw in the comp set, and presented a revised view unprompted. That kind of ownership at the intern level is rare. I'd expect him to be managing deals, not just supporting them, within a few years of graduating."

That second letter corroborates a specific narrative: this person shows leadership through intellectual initiative, not just hard work. It reinforces exactly what you'd want an investor or operator-track applicant to be communicating in their essays.

The difference is the brief.

What Explicit Briefing Actually Looks Like

The most important thing I tell my clients is this: don't give your recommender your pre- and post-MBA plans. Give your recommender the specific angle you're writing about and tell them exactly how you need to be framed.

Not: "Here are my goals before and after business school."

Instead: "This is what I'm writing about in my essays. I'm building a narrative around intellectual ownership and early leadership. Here are two moments from our work together that fit that story. If you can frame me through that lens, it would reinforce what the committee will be reading in my application."

That is the briefing conversation. It's direct. It's explicit. It gives your recommender something to build toward.

Some applicants feel uncomfortable being this directive. They think it sounds like they're putting words in someone's mouth. That instinct is wrong. You're not asking your recommender to lie. You're giving them the context they need to write something useful. Recommenders are rarely reluctant to be specific. They're usually grateful when an applicant tells them exactly what would help.

The Ghost-Writing Norm

In finance, it is standard practice for applicants to write a full draft of their own recommendation letter and hand it to the supervisor to edit and submit. This is not considered unusual or inappropriate. Most senior people in banking and private equity expect it. They are busy, they know you understand your own application better than they do, and they trust you to write something accurate and representative of what they would say.

If your recommender is from finance or consulting, you can and should offer a draft. Frame it as: "I know you're busy. I'm happy to write a full draft that you can edit and make your own, or I can send you the key themes and examples and you can write from scratch. Whatever is more helpful."

This is not cheating. It is a standard part of the process at the senior levels of most competitive industries. The letter still goes through your recommender's review and gets submitted under their name. They are accountable for what they sign off on. You're just making it easier for them to write something good.

Even if your recommender is an academic or outside of finance and prefers to write the letter themselves, you can still provide a detailed brief that functions as a loose outline. The goal is the same: give them the architecture of what you need, so the letter they produce supports your application rather than drifting into generic territory.

How to Check Quality Without Reading the Letter

Most programs keep recommendations confidential. You can't read what your recommender submitted, and asking to see it puts them in an awkward position. But you can diagnose quality through conversation.

After your recommender has submitted, or during a check-in call, ask a few questions:

Ask them what specific examples they used. If they can name one or two concrete moments they wrote about, the letter is probably specific. If they say something like "I talked about your general performance and your attitude," the letter is probably generic.

Ask whether the letter came together easily for them. A recommender who wrote something specific usually says yes, because the brief gave them clear material to work with. A recommender who struggled likely didn't have enough to say or defaulted to general impressions.

Ask whether there's anything in the letter they felt uncertain about or that you could have given them more context on. This tells you whether there were gaps in your brief, and it gives you information to improve the briefing conversation with any remaining recommenders.

None of this tells you exactly what they wrote. But it gives you a reasonable signal about whether the letter is working for you or sitting in the pile with all the other letters about "strong analytical skills."

The Briefing Packet

Pull together one document before the conversation. Include your essay themes at a high level, two or three specific examples from your time working with that recommender that map to those themes, a one-paragraph note on what you're going to do during the deferral period and what you're aiming for post-MBA, and the exact programs and deadlines.

The examples are the most important part. You know your own work better than your recommender does. You remember the specific deliverable, the moment you pushed back on something, the project where you took ownership. Surface those moments explicitly. Don't assume they remember.

Write them out as short paragraphs, not just bullet points. Give your recommender the full picture of each moment: what the task was, what you specifically did, and what the outcome was. That level of detail is what turns a memory into a paragraph in a letter.

Send this packet the same week you ask. Don't wait for confirmation and then send it three weeks later. The sooner your recommender has the material, the more time they have to write something good.

What to Do Next

• Write out your core essay narrative in two to three sentences before you brief any recommender. If you can't summarize what you're writing about, you're not ready to brief anyone.
• For each recommender, identify two or three specific moments from your work together that reinforce that narrative. Write each one out in a short paragraph.
• Have the explicit briefing conversation. Tell them the angle you're building and the specific examples you're hoping they can reference.
• If your recommender is in finance or consulting, offer to write a draft. Frame it as making things easier for them, not as telling them what to say.
• After submission, ask a few diagnostic questions to get a signal on whether the letter is specific or generic.
• Check in three to four weeks before the deadline to confirm they've submitted.

For the full recommender framework including who to choose and how to manage the timeline, see Module 05: Recommenders. If you want to work through your briefing strategy directly, I offer one-on-one coaching.