Contract ended. Laid off. Better opportunity.
On academic probation.
My recommendations are from my former supervisor and my colleague.
We see things like these on applications all the time. Brief and to the point, phrases like these may give the basic details of a situation, but fail to fully explain what’s going on. When that happens, you are raising questions in the readers’ minds. If you leave it to your reader to guess the answer, you’re opening yourself up to misinterpretation and mistakes. Your job as an applicant is to be upfront; answer those questions before they ever become an issue.
Let’s look at some of the common problems we see.
Unusual Work History
We’ve faced a challenging job market for a few years now. There have been companies folding, layoffs, and tough competition for remaining jobs. Things may be looking up but many people haven’t experienced steady growth in their careers. In addition, some people are risk-takers or work in inherently less-stable industries. Or some people unexpectedly receive great offers, necessitating frequent moves.
There are a variety of reasons your work history may not be a straight upward progression. The key challenge for you is to explain it, not just in two words, but in a full sentence; maybe even more than one sentence. If you had a gap between jobs, let us know what you did during the gap. If you accepted a better offer, explain why it was better, especially if the title or salary doesn’t make that immediately obvious. Think not just “what?” but “why?”
Academic Stumbles
Frequently we’ll see resumes that highlight an applicant’s GPA in their major or for their last two years at school. OK, we understand why you’d want to highlight the better years or classes, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to look at everything. So be sure to talk about those other years or classes. Acknowledge your academic flaws, whether it’s one course or a whole semester. Give us an understanding of the situation, what you learned from it and, most importantly, why this is an anomaly and not a reflection of the student you will be at Tuck.
Recommendation Choices
We prefer recommendations from supervisors and strongly prefer that your current supervisor will be one of the people providing your recommendation. But there are many reasons why you might wish to have someone other than your current supervisor write it. Maybe you just started working for them, or telling them will affect your promotion and assignment opportunities, or they simply don’t understand what you do. As with the other situations, explain. Tell us why you picked this choice for your recommender. Explain how this person can give a well-rounded perspective of your skills and abilities. Letting us know the reason why stops us from guessing – often incorrectly.
The optional essay is a great place to explain these tricky situations if you couldn’t fit it neatly into another part of your application. You don’t need to write an essay. You do need to fill in any blanks for the reader so we don’t fill it in ourselves.