{"id":6697,"date":"2011-08-23T11:00:26","date_gmt":"2011-08-23T15:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?p=6697"},"modified":"2022-01-27T11:39:32","modified_gmt":"2022-01-27T16:39:32","slug":"mission-admission-i-have-no-supervisor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-have-no-supervisor\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission Admission: I Have No Supervisor!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new\u00a0one\u00a0is posted\u00a0each Tuesday.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am self-employed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am a vice-president in a family business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am a freelancer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am a contract consultant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If you can describe your professional situation using any of these statements\u2014or something very similar\u2014you may very well be thinking (and worrying), \u201cI have no supervisor! Who is going to write my recommendations?!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before we address this problem, let us first remind you that MBA admissions committees have indeed seen it all. Your situation is most likely not unique, so you do not need to fret. Let\u2019s consider the example of the family-business vice-president and add a detail\u2014that the family business is in manufacturing. This hypothetical MBA candidate could contact one of the company&#8217;s long-standing clients or suppliers, who may be able to write about the applicant\u2019s integrity, growth, sense of humor, determination\u00a0and more, all in relation to other comparable individuals.<\/p>\n<p>If these constituents were not able to offer adequate feedback, however, the MBA candidate might instead ask the head of a trade association or possibly even a respected competitor to write on his\/her behalf. If the applicant really needed to get creative, he\/she might even consider asking a service provider; for example, getting a letter of reference from an architectural firm that collaborated with the candidate to build a new manufacturing facility could be an interesting solution.<\/p>\n<p>In short, most MBA candidates have more potential recommenders to choose among than they realize.\u00a0Keep looking and try not to get discouraged\u2014someone out there knows you well and can write objectively on your behalf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new\u00a0one\u00a0is posted\u00a0each Tuesday. \u201cI am self-employed.\u201d \u201cI am a vice-president in a family business.\u201d \u201cI am a freelancer.\u201d \u201cI am a contract consultant.\u201d If you can describe your professional situation using any of these statements\u2014or something very similar\u2014you may very well be thinking (and worrying), &hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-have-no-supervisor\/\">Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;<i class=\"fal fa-sm fa-angle-right\"><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mission-admission"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mission Admission: I Have No Supervisor! | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-have-no-supervisor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mission Admission: I Have No Supervisor! | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new\u00a0one\u00a0is posted\u00a0each Tuesday. \u201cI am self-employed.\u201d \u201cI am a vice-president in a family business.\u201d \u201cI am a freelancer.\u201d \u201cI am a contract consultant.\u201d If you can describe your professional situation using any of these statements\u2014or something very similar\u2014you may very well be thinking (and worrying), &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-have-no-supervisor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-23T15:00:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-01-27T16:39:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-fallback-image.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeremy Shinewald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jeremy Shinewald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mission Admission: I Have No Supervisor! | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-have-no-supervisor\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mission Admission: I Have No Supervisor! | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","og_description":"Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new\u00a0one\u00a0is posted\u00a0each Tuesday. \u201cI am self-employed.\u201d \u201cI am a vice-president in a family business.\u201d \u201cI am a freelancer.\u201d \u201cI am a contract consultant.\u201d If you can describe your professional situation using any of these statements\u2014or something very similar\u2014you may very well be thinking (and worrying), &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-have-no-supervisor\/","og_site_name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","article_published_time":"2011-08-23T15:00:26+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-01-27T16:39:32+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-fallback-image.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Jeremy Shinewald","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jeremy Shinewald","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":["Article","BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-have-no-supervisor\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-have-no-supervisor\/"},"author":{"name":"Jeremy Shinewald","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f"},"headline":"Mission Admission: I Have No Supervisor!","datePublished":"2011-08-23T15:00:26+00:00","dateModified":"2022-01-27T16:39:32+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-have-no-supervisor\/"},"wordCount":285,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Mission Admission"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-have-no-supervisor\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-have-no-supervisor\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-i-have-no-supervisor\/","name":"Mission Admission: I Have No Supervisor! 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