I have gleaned some information w.r.t recommendations from various sources and would like to share it with people so it could give a broad guideline to people, in terms of, who is preferred and what is the best course of action. I have tried to rank the various criteria which should be considered while selecting recommenders. I would consider them in the order below and feel that this ranking would more or less be applicable to most of the situations. Feel free to share your opinion though.
While choosing your recommenders (referred to as "they" in the points below) check if they meet these criteria (preferably in this order)
1. They are willing to give you a positive recommendation. All said and done a negative reco from anyone in the world is not going to help.
2. They can talk about your professional accomplishments. B-schools prefer professional recommenders over academic, as they are trying to assess your business acumen rather than academic prowess. Also, academic recommenders can rarely talk about your team skills and professional promise.
3. They are your current supervisors. Although B-schools allow applicants to use other recommenders (like previous supervisors etc.) and explain the situation in an optional essay, they prefer current supervisors. The simple fact that they want us to explain "Why couldn't we get it from our current supervisor" shows that they value the recency of the recommender's comments. I think they believe, the older/indirect the context of recommendation, the more irrelevant it becomes, because the applicant could have changed since then, the applicant could be putting up a face in front of the recommender as there could be vested interests and the recommender could have forgotten the exact details. Also in the case of older contexts, the chance that the applicant is writing her own reco is higher. If your current supervisor is the CEO then so be it, but designations would not be relevant beyond a certain level.
4. They can spend some time and support their comments with specific examples. Recommendations are used by the B-schools to know more about the applicant. They would like to hear from people who can talk passionately about the applicant with real life examples. The less the number of examples the more lifeless the recommendation.
5. They can write grammatically correct, good English. This is an area where most of the recommenders would do well but it’s still noteworthy so that in case you are in a situation where the recommender struggles with English you could help her with it. Although, the tricky thing would be, “How do I tell my boss that you need help?". Be careful with your choice of words.
6. They have a good idea of the advantages of an MBA and especially if they are familiar with the MBA at the specific B-school. This is why, a recommendation from an alumnus would become important, but only if he meets all the above criteria.
7. They have a good cross section of people to compare you with. They can add the right kind of perspective while comparing you with others. This is why a recommendation from a person with cross functional experience of different functions with substantial overall experience (preferably 10 years+) helps. These recommenders would be able to objectively differentiate you from other people at your level.
8. They can talk about different aspects of your personality which the other parts of your application, or other recommender(s), don’t cover. Ideally you should use different recommendation to strengthen different parts of your candidature.
I guess these points do not cover all the various situations which you might face but in my experience I have found this list to be a good starting point.
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