Hello,

I need some advice on choosing a peer recommender. My choices are as follows:

(Note: I work for a consulting firm)

1. An independent consultant with whom I worked as a peer on a recent project at a client, but who is not employed by either the client organization or my own company. This is someone who I know would provide a good recommendation, but there may be some overlap in messages with one of my other recommendations (written by a client on the same project)

2. A peer from my firm with whom I worked recently (until 3 months ago) on the same project as in #1, but who has left the firm since. This person would write a good recommendation, but I think I was slightly closer to the person in option 1.

3. A peer from my current firm with whom I worked on a different project 2 years ago. This person would provide a good recommendation, but the experience he would talk about would be less recent.

4. A peer from my former firm who is now pursuing an MBA. Similar to option 3, this person would be talking about an experience from over 2 years ago.

Please let me know your thoughts.
Thanks

Hello,

I think you're thinking about this the right way -- i.e., you seem to have a good handle on the pros and cons of each possible recommendation writer.

In general, more recent is always better, not only because the stories are in fact newer, but also because usually your older stories involved jobs/projects/situations in which you had less responsibility than you do now. If you were a junior assistant to the associate consultant way back when, then the stories about your time in those situations will be less interesting than if they're about a time when you led a team, etc. But, if your older stories are still ones in which you had some responsibility, demonstrated your leadership and teamwork skills, etc. then one of the older stories could still work for you.

Also, don't forget to look outside your job... If you have a great recommendation opportunity there, I'd seriously consider it as well.

Of the four you listed, knowing very little about them (of course), I'd rank them like this:
#2
#1
#3
#4

BTW, we've written extensively about MBA letters of recommendation on our blog:

http://blog.veritasprep.com/2010/05/let ... r-you.html

Good luck!
Scott